Dillon: ‘This was one of the sweetest wins’

Tom Dillon, the long-serving Milltown ladies’ football team manager, was in ebullient form in Kinnegad last Saturday afternoon when he spoke to the media after his side had regained the Jack Lyster Cup by defeating hat-trick chasers, St Mary’s, Rochfortbridge in the ladies’ SFC final.

At the outset, he stated: “It was a great win. We were in the final last year and were beaten by a point in TEG Cusack Park. So we all got together and we said we were going to try our best to see could we get back on top again this year.

“Fair play to the women, we got there. The attitude at the last two weeks of training was great and I was full of confidence coming here today having seen what the women were saying, doing and sacrificing.

“We are after winning several titles but, to me, this was one of the sweetest because we were written off, as simple as that. We were told that we were too old, that the young ones were too young, that we hadn’t the right mix. But we finished on top today,” he added.

It was put to him that his charges had looked very likely winners when they led at half-time having played against the wind in the first half. He responded: “Sometimes the wind can be a hindrance. I’d say that the third quarter probably belonged to Rochfortbridge, the way they came at us. And that’s what they do, they come at you.

“But at training we’ve doing drills to dispossess, dispossess, dispossess. Now in the first half, we turned over 11 or 12 balls.

He continued: “What we’ve been doing at training in the last few weeks, we put it on the pitch today and we got scores out of it at the end. I’m delighted there for three or four women who are getting towards the end of their careers. I’m absolutely thrilled for them.

“We know well what it’s like to lose. St Mary’s were deserving winners for the last couple of years and we know they were going for three in-a-row. But I never mentioned that to the women – they said it to me. All I said is that it was just another game of football and we want to try and win it.”

When he was asked had he any plans for Milltown’s upcoming Leinster championship encounter against Meath champions Dunboyne, the winning bainisteoir concluded: “It never even entered our heads. We’ll enjoy ourselves tonight and tomorrow night, and then we’ll go forward and do the best that we can without a shadow of a doubt.”

— Gerry Buckley