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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Padraic: We never gave up
BY ANTHONY HENNIGAN
SATURDAY’S game had left him almost breathless but Padraic Costello was still able put words on the eighty minutes of football that just was.
“I’ve seen many a great game of football but that was probably the greatest of them all. It was end-to-end stuff and there was a massive honesty about it,” said the Gortnor Abbey manager as he and his sidekick Gerry Leonard watched their team warm down in preparation of next Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final.
“We were under no illusions coming down here that we were playing an ‘A’ standard team. Clifden have seven players training with the Galway minors,” added Costello. “But for a small school we have major heart. Most of our lads have six Connacht titles in the last three years between junior, under 17 and senior so they know how to win.”
35 scores and not a single booking, this was a game of the purist kind; the sort that affirms one’s belief that Gaelic football is the greatest game in the world when played as per the rules and in the correct spirit.
Points rained over both crossbars as the sides shared 12 points in the opening 18 minutes and that loss of inhibition was carried by both teams into extra-time as Gortnor plundered 1-4 to Clifden’s 0-5 one score for every two minutes of football played.
“Overall I felt we did deserve to win it. There were a few chances in normal time that we should have put away. In extra-time they (Clifden) looked stronger on occasions but that’s the nature of football, you never give up,” said Padraic Costello, his side having overturned a four points deficit during extra-time.
“We won two Connacht finals last year after extra-time so that probably stood to us. It’s been instilled into the heads of our fellas to keep going right to the last minute and that’s just what they did.”
At the time of going to press, no opposition or venue has been confirmed for Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final.
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