Bad decisions and absence of energy costs Stephenites dearly

The penalty shoot-out had yet to get underway but one Ballina Stephenites player wasn’t hanging around to see if his five chosen teammates could secure their club a place in the Connacht final for the first time in 17 years. Ciaran Treacy has spent the past couple of championship seasons flying back and forth from the United Arab Emirates and with last Sunday’s provincial semi-final at Markievicz Park going the full distance, no pilot was going to hold a big silver tube parked on the tarmac at Dublin Airport for the sake of Treacy and his game of football.

And so it was that as Evan Regan walked from beyond the 45-metre line towards the Cairns Hill goal to take the first penalty, Ciaran Treacy had already sprinted out of the ground, bag and boots in hand and the full Stephenites kit still upon him, and into a waiting car, ready for the first leg of his journey to the furthest reaches of the Middle East.

There’ll be no rush on him returning this time however, as Coolera-Strandhill goalkeeper Keelan Harte saved one penalty and David Clarke none, to see the 11/2 underdogs advance to their first-ever Connacht Club SFC Final.

“Penalties are a lottery and we let ourselves get into a lottery, which we shouldn’t have,” lamented Ballina Stephenites manager Niall Heffernan afterwards. “We were two points up with a couple of minutes to go and we didn’t hold out, so that’s our bad.

“I’m devastated to be honest,” admitted Heffernan. “We came down here to perform, we came down here to try and reach the Connacht final and we failed. Ultimately, it’s a really devastating day for us.” 

It was Ballina’s second game in eight days, having had a return trip to play North London Shamrocks in Ruislip, but Niall Heffernan was loathe to offer excuses for his side’s underperformance and suggested they were lucky to even take the game to extra-time.

“I have to take my hat off to Coolera-Strandhill, they set out to play a game and they succeeded. Probably, over the course of the 60 minutes, they deserved to win it. They missed chances late on in the second-half that could have put us away.

“We just didn’t seem to have the same energy as we’ve had in other games but again, they set up very well and made the pitch very small on us. And they held onto the ball for a very long time when they had possession so it’s frustrating trying to get it back. But that’s all really good tactics by them and when they had the opportunities they took their scores.

“I suppose we’d have to wonder did all the travelling last weekend have an effect. I don’t know. We thought we were well prepared, we rested up a bit during the week, but it was a very tough weekend, last weekend,” stated the two-time Mayo SFC winning boss.

Losing Mayo defender Sam Callinan to injury seven minutes from the end of normal time was an extra blow to a Ballina team already down the services of Ger Cafferkey and Sean Regan, but things had been far from plain sailing for Coolera-Strandhill either, as veteran Sligo player Keelan Cawley was ruled out because of an injury sustained in the warm-up while corner-forward Luke Bree was also a very late addition to the sickbay.

“I’m not going to make excuses at all because we have a panel of players who worked really, really hard all year long and we felt that panel was good enough. Coolera-Strandhill had to make two changes before the game started as well, they lost key players, so that balances itself out,” said Niall Heffernan.

“I think on the day we just made some bad decisions and didn’t show the same drive and energy that we needed to, to question them. And fair play to them, when they needed to get the scores they got them.

“There were times it looked like we were going to pull away but didn’t. It looked in extra-time that we were going to pull away and we didn’t. But we knew that Coolera-Strandhill were never going to go away. I saw them play last year against St Brigid’s and they fought right to the very end, even though Brigid’s were well on top for most of the game. That’s the type of team they are,” added the Ballina manager.

His counterpart, John McPartland, was understandably beaming with joy at how his Coolera-Strandhill team had fought their way back to parity in the second-half of extra-time despite playing without their star forward Niall Murphy for a large part of it.

“The boys showed serious character to come back and get a draw. We practiced penalties Thursday night and thankfully the same boys stood up and put them away.

“It’s brilliant for Coolera-Strandhill to be in a Connacht final. It’s a serious achievement for the group. These lads are unbelievable, for the character they showed, to play against a top class Ballina team, to never die, to never give up, they’re just unbelievable,” exclaimed McPartland, adding: “We were the only ones who believed that we could win, outside our camp nobody gave us a chance, but every game is there to be won and thankfully we got over the line today.”