School of hard Knock's guide final win

The experience and hard lessons learned from last year’s Primary Junior A Final defeat to Claremorris were key in Knockmore going a step further and winning the title last Saturday evening.

That was the view of the man of the match Dylan Coleman, who was one of ten men who played in last weekend’s final that featured in the 2024 final against the South Mayo. On that day, fifteen wides cost the Parish of the Backs dearly and while it was performance in fits and bursts, it was ultimately enough against Westport.

We were up here last year, Claremorris took us extra time and we lost, so to get back up again this year and get over the line, it’s brilliant, thank God,” said Coleman, who finished with eight points to his name.

“There’s a lot of periods. I think the first 10 minutes, they probably started strong. I think we were six down the first half, then we have a big period, and they go ahead again in the second half. So, coming in spurts. Ideally, you want to put them spurts as one big one together. But then coming down the last stretch, level again, was déjà vu last year so the bit of experience probably stood to us.” Coleman added: “It's a testament to our whole set up there between Pat with the junior management and Ray and the whole way down. I say 25, 30 lads have probably seen Division 1 senior league football this year. I think you see it out there, the quality of that junior team is unbelievable.

“I think you'll see a lot of them heads in senior championship hopefully in the coming weeks. It's just so strong all coming down from that senior team, training and games, a whole lot together.” Coleman played a big part in their scoring prowess, but five of their six starting forwards were on the scoresheet. Even though Ronan Melvin did not do so, his work rate and link up with his fellow attackers was a joy to watch.

“Ronan Melvin had such a game there and Charlie, he's always a good man for a goal and a couple of points so it's definitely not a one man thing. Everyone's chipping in. Flynn there, Sean Ruttledge, everyone. It's one big, one big group effort.” All the attention for Knockmore will now turn into the Mayo club championship, which begins with a trip to Balla on Sunday week. Having avenged one final defeat, they will also hope to go one step further in the Moclair Cup race after defeat to local rivals Ballina Stephenites in the decider last year. But before anything, all focus in Knockmore will be on getting maximum points from Nally Park.

“As I said about the junior last year, it's so nice to come up and avenge it. Obviously we'll have hopes and doing that with the senior too, but we have massive, massive test in Balla in [two] weeks time so it's just that one, just get over Balla and we'll see what happens from there.”