Kiltimagh dare to dream of Croke Park return

By their own admission, Kiltimagh were not at their best there was still more than enough for them to defeat Aughavas to win the Connacht club junior football title last Saturday.

“After winning Mayo, you kind of forget about Connacht and then you celebrate for a couple of days and then you realise it's on,” said Kiltimagh captain Liam Kelly. “We managed it, we made it a bit sloppy in the second half hat [but] what a feeling, what a feeling.” Kelly admitted the winning margin could have been greater and credited the impact of substitutes Aidan Cosgrove and Eoghan Lavin when Aughavas had some momentum in the second half.

“We could have definitely [been more comfortable] and I think we'd done it a bit against Croan’s as well, where we just got ourselves caught at the start of the second half, just we needed to convert a few scores. But we do have lads to come off the bench and score.

“Look, we'll take note of it, we'll go into the All-Ireland series, and we'll hold nothing back.” Thomas Keegan may have been awarded man of the match, but manager Mick Regan paid tribute to his full back line, who kept the full-forward trio of Joey McBrien, Adrian Shortt and Darren Shortt to just seven points.

“We are patient on the ball, and we do seem to be able to cut open teams at the right time with the patience. But it was our full back line that our performance is built on today. Matty, Kevin and Evan Cosgrove. It was really that full-back line that the performance is built on today because their full-forward line was probably the hottest full-forward line that we'd have come up against. There was 1-15 score between two of them in the county final.

Matty has man marked everyone that we could have put on him this year. He's man marked him. Held Lee Traynor to a point. Senan Guilfoyle as well, to a point from play, Matty's done that. With Kevin and Evan around him, they're just a good full-back line, a really good full-back line.” Ulster champions Clogher Éire Óg of Tyrone await in the All-Ireland semi-final as Kiltimagh now stand one game away from a return to Croke Park where they played in the 2010 All-Ireland junior final.

Liam Kelly was in the stand that day and Mick Regan was the sideline and both men know opportunities like this come around seldomly.

The thing about it is you've one chance at this,” said Kelly. “It would be unlikely that any of us today, maybe some of younger lads, ever get the chance to go up there again. No fear, just go for it. As much as we can give.” “The biggest trophy going for us now is an All-Ireland final, added Regan, who hopes to have Brian Gallagher back in the New Year after he missed the Connacht final win due to injury. “We will be pushing all the way.

“I think it is Clogher we've got in the semi-final. Don't know anything about them but we’ll be pushing all that way to get our lads to grace the turf of Croke Park.”