‘It's hard to top this feeling’ - Áine Connaughton

By Kevin Egan

It’ll only be in the coming years when Roscommon’s 2026 All-Ireland intermediate win is put into the context of how they survive at senior level, that it will be possible to make a fair determination on whether this was a meticulously planned out sporting success that was always going to happen. Or if a group of talented players just caught lightning in a bottle at the right time and simply seized an opportunity that emerged from the ashes of a chaotic, unpredictable championship.

Results might indicate the latter, but a scan of the team list gives a different impression. The core of the team has been there for a decent amount of time, and the additional pieces that were added in either at the start or during this campaign were either proven players who had to step away for injury and life reasons (Kate Nolan, Laura Mannion) or in the case of Áine Connaughton at full-back, a player that Finbar Egan knew well through Clann na nGael, even if she wasn’t in a position to play for the county until this season.

Even then, a handful of niggly injuries meant that she couldn’t drive into preseason at full speed, but on Sunday afternoon she looked like an experienced intercounty veteran who was at the peak of her powers.

“It's an unbelievable day and an unbelievable journey, it's hard to even describe it except to say it’s just insane,” is how she put it into words in Croke Park.

Having come back from Australia in time for this season, Connaughton was described by management as someone who developed extremely quickly due to her ability to absorb a lot of information and to put those lessons into practice on the field immediately. As a result, by the time the summer came around, the fact that she could reasonably be described as an intercounty rookie was brushed aside and she quickly took on the mantle of the team’s foremost marking defender.

Having got the better of Leitrim’s Muireann Devaney and then held Westmeath’s Sarah Dillon to four points, it was always going to be the case that when a Fermanagh full-forward Eimear Smyth – who scored 1-10 in the Erne County’s semi-final win over Down – was going to be Connaughton’s responsibility in Croke Park.

“It was confirmed straight away, when we knew we were playing Fermanagh,” was her reply, when asked when she was told about the role.

“When you're playing full-back, you suspect that you will be put on one of the trickiest players! I knew I had a job to do and regardless of anything else going on the pitch, I just focused on that job and did everything I could to just try and keep her a little bit on her toes, to try and do my best, basically.”

The Clann defender paid tribute to her own forwards as having helped her get ready for the challenge of battling with Fermanagh’s star forward. “When you go to training and you go out alongside the girls we have with Roscommon, the depth we have with our forwards and our midfielders, everyone there can score. You're marking them in training and that prepares you to mark the best players because, in my opinion, they're just as good," she observed.

“Also, you can't make it bigger than what it is. It’s just do your job, get on with it, put every bit of your will into it, and every player on our panel, whether they got on the field or not, did that to make sure we were ready for today. It's just 60 minutes, maybe less, for each player, and everybody has different skills they bring to the group, everybody has a lot to offer. All I had to do was to try and make it difficult for (Smyth) to score and if you can do that, you're doing your job.”

While it looked to most of those watching that Roscommon were as good as over the line when they went into the dressing room at half-time, Connaughton cited that the team’s rocky road to Dublin meant that they were never going to presume anything, and she was delighted that they kept up the pressure and held Fermanagh scoreless in the third quarter.

“It was touch and go there at the start of the season and throughout, but it really just came together in the end and if anything, I think our lows have made us so much better. We really showed the kind of team we are today and just throughout, we never stopped.”

“I think it was important that we never let that (lead) stop us from driving on, even when we went in the halftime, we knew it wasn't going to be a straight run. We just knew that we couldn't give them an inch basically.”

With this year behind her and her ‘rookie’ status well and truly cast aside, Connaughton has the profile of a player that could well thrive at the higher level, even though she admitted that returning to a high like this won’t be easily done.

“Jesus, I think it's going to be hard to beat this day. This is what you dream of, playing in Croke Park and representing your county,” she beamed. “Maybe if you can represent your club in Croke Park, but either way, it's hard to top this feeling,” added Áine.