‘Those lads never give up, they just don't know how to lose’ 

The thoughts of Ballina Stephenites manager Niall Heffernan were, in his own words, very scrambled after his side had claimed a third Moclair Cup in-a-row. Given the most dramatic of finishes, he could be forgiven.

Ten points down with ten minutes of regulation time left, even the most ardent Ballina supporter could see little hope of a way back. They had done themselves few favours thanks to a subpar first-half performance, but champions find a way and Heffernan hailed the character of his history makers.

“We were so poor at times in the first-half and Westport were so good. When we conceded a goal straight away from the throw-in they looked to be much more hungry and more aggressive than us, which we talked about at half-time.

“But those lads never give up, they just don't know how to lose, and they just found a way.” 

Heffernan added: “We had to make changes. We ended up playing with seven forwards in the last ten minutes and it paid off. Stuff like that, you have to take a chance. We had nothing to lose, we’re nine points down and we said, let's throw in an extra forward, took off a back, and it paid off for us.” 

A massive swing in momentum arrived after the withdrawal of Westport’s Eoghan McLaughlin due to what looked like a serious injury. It happened in front of Heffernan and while he acknowledged that it gave his side a boost, his immediate thoughts were with the player.

“I felt really sorry for him because I could see the pain he was in and he put in such a massive shift for Westport. I hate to see players going off injured.

“We were just thinking about ourselves and what we needed to do, and we just needed our players to step up and in fairness they did.” 

Heffernan hailed the second-half response of his side as well as the patience in the closing minutes to work the scores for Evan Regan, singling out the captain for special praise.

“We took a couple of wild shots but against the breeze we knew we had to work it well and the lads had the belief that, ‘yeah, we’ll keep getting the scores.’ 

“We left scores behind us. We had probably two goal chances second-half that other days those players would score. In fairness to Westport, they pulled off a great block and a great save.

“I was pleased [with the second-half] because we were playing against the breeze as well. It probably suited us because in the first-half we took too much ball into contact and we know how good Westport are when they tackle you.

“I'm thrilled for Evan because he's been a brilliant captain for us all year, both in everything he's done, the training pitch, off the pitch, everything like that, he's been brilliant. People have criticised him a little bit, that he hasn't been scoring enough from play the last two games. He answered that today.” 

After being out for three weekends in-a-row, Ballina will welcome a two-week break now before their Connacht club quarter-final against London champions North London Shamrocks. There will be some sore bodies over the next few days but none more than a ‘bashed and battered’ Padraig O’Hora, who played over 40 minutes after being withdrawn the week before following a heavy collision with Lee Keegan. Niall Heffernan could not have paid him a bigger compliment.

“No other player in Ireland would have gone on that pitch today other than Padraig O’Hora. He spoke at half-time brilliantly and he backed up what he said for as long as he could stay on the pitch.”