Resilience and defiance key components of ‘Church victory

By Noel Dundon

How do you sum up a game like that?

It was thrilling, exhilarating, absorbing, bizarre even. It was club hurling at its very best and if you are from Tooreen, you are probably wondering how you did not win the All-Ireland having struck 2-21 from play over eighty-plus minutes.

The Mayo lads won on the score count – 26 scores to 24, but Upperchurch/Drombane got the all-important goals, and while each one was very significant in determining the outcome of the game, none was more important that Conor Fahey’s second half strike.

At that stage, Tooreen had overcome a seven-point deficit and reduced it to one point at the interval. They continued that great sequence of scores to rattle off five points to Upperchurch/Drombane’s one in the ten minutes after half time. Momentum was seriously with the men from the west, but Fahey’s goal on forty minutes provided something of a semi-colon to their run – not a full stop, mind you.

Fahey manufactured the goal from virtually nothing – he gained possession about fifty metres out, turned his man and raced through to fire past the keeper who actually saved more difficult shots during the course of the game. The goal was a real fillip to The Church and it was badly needed because Tooreen rattled off another four points immediately after it.

Upperchurch/Drombane’s woes materialised out of the fact that Tooreen were finding pockets of space in the middle third. Their gambit of bringing the ball forward and then recycling it to the shooters outfield worked a treat – they plucked the majority of their scores on the day from outside the 45 metre line.

It took the Tipp champions a long time to recognise what was happening, but when the message finally got through from the sideline, the pitch tightened up and the supply line reduced.

Still, there was a hell of a battle to be played out, and out it was played right to the very death. Upperchurch/Drombane found ways of creating danger in the full forward line and the arrival of Jack Butler and Paddy Phelan certainly helped in this regard – their craft and knowhow was a big bonus when the pace of the arena had diminished.

Had this game slipped them by, Upperchurch/Drombane would have been bitterly disappointed. They would have known that they had the wherewithal to win it; known that they had the opportunity to win it; and known that their chances of winning the title again would be very slim. Let’s face it, at this stage they do not want to win it again, because that would mean being relegated from senior and going the long journey again to the All-Ireland Final. So, this was a one-off and thankfully for them, the cards fell the right way.

Gavin Ryan’s game-levelling free with the last puck of the ball in normal time was pressure personified, but coolness personified too. He struck it with confidence – just another free like the hundreds he has hit in practice in Drombane. He knew extra time was on the cards and there was a confidence about the champions as they went into the dressing room, and a confidence about them when they re-emerged too. It was almost as though they knew they had the legs to outlast the Mayo men.

Again, goals played their part in the winning of the title. Two in the first period of extra time – Paddy Phelan and Fahey again the providers, and then the last score of the game for the ‘Church -Paul Shanahan’s overhead pull on a Gavin Ryan free which nearly ripped the net at the Canal End.

The goals were needed as Tooreen rattled in two of their own in a minute to create a tense finale – Upperchurch/Drombane had blinked and the last four scores of the match were chalked down to the westerners. It was time to re-focus and that was the message delivered by full back Keith Ryan and his brother Gavin in front of him – they knew Tooreen were coming in search of a dramatic last-gasp winning goal, and they were in no mood to allow it to happen.

As dramatic and bizarre a final as Croke Park has seen in many a year, Upperchurch/Drombane players and supporters were just thrilled that the end-game advantage fell on their side. Sometimes tactics and coaching go out the window in games like these, but they definitely played their part in winning the All-Ireland, as did resilience, courage and defiance.