Philosophical Reilly backs his players in defeat

“It's football. That's why we love it.” 

 The first words of Kilmeena manager John Reilly to the local media just minutes after a heartbreaking loss in the Connacht club intermediate semi-final don’t just sum up the man, but the team that has developed under his tenure.

Despite not performing to their potential for at least two-thirds of this game, a storming final third almost saw Kilmeena pull off the win. The chances were not taken, with a Darragh Keaveney penalty to win the match in the final seconds of second-half stoppage time saved, but Reilly was philosophical about the defeat and paid tribute to his side and the large support who came down to Tuam.

“It's hard for our lads. We kind of left a mountain to climb there going into the second-half, [Monivea-Abbey] were three points up. I think they controlled the ball a bit better. Our boys were dropping ones and twos in the first-half and we needed to go and contact them a little bit more and we started doing that in the second-half.

“The penalty at the end, people are saying, ‘Oh, should he have kicked it over?’ Keavo should have went for that. He did everything right, great save by the ‘keeper and they’re the breaks. You look at their small margins, they got a free kick in there and the fist went up and went over the bar. You can't legislate for that.

“The crowd were amazing. The boys, look, we went at it, we gave it everything and we came out the wrong side of it. I can go into this and that but we loved every minute out there, the fun of the game, mistakes happen, and that's football and people got a good day’s entertainment.” 

Darragh Keaveney was understandably crestfallen following the final whistle. The safe option to just kick the ball over the bar and take the game to extra-time could have been taken but Reilly was adamant he was right to go for goal.

“Darragh is an excellent player and it's really hard on him. He is going to be really tough on himself and he doesn't need to be. You know, he went for it and the keeper saved it. That's football if you went back into the game, he'd do the same thing and I want him to do the same thing. [Denis Farragher] saved it and fair play to him.

“You’ve got to go for it. There could be a few little tweaks you could have done here and there maybe, or some of our handling skills could be a little bit better, but look, that's the breaks.” 

John Reilly added: “I could look at it and you could be upset about losing and I am upset about losing, but I've awful pride for the lads and their effort. I feel sorry for them in the effort they put into it. But hats off to Monivea there, you could see there that they’re a senior outfit, the tackle, the hitting in the first-half. It took a long time for our boys to get a pitch of it. There's some like Trevor Mullins, he came into the game and out of the game and he was very good.

“I'd love to have gone into the Connacht final, but fair play to them. They've got Castlerea now next week.” 

The defeat ends Kilmeena’s season for 2023 but it still has brought the club’s first ever Sweeney Cup and they will be playing senior in 2024 for the first time in their history. John Reilly says they are already looking forward to that.

“We've got two games here now, that'll add to the [preparation]. We've got a bit more conditioning to do, and we've got a little bit more work to do and get the boys together. We're looking forward to next year.”