“This is why you play. Moments like this,” says Mohill’s Shane Quinn after historic win

A Sean Harkin penalty sent Mohill into the promised land as they won the first back to back Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC titles in their history on Saturday evening. Having come up short time and again in their bid to retain the Fenagh Cup, Mohill captain Shane Quinn stressed that those losses were an important factor in their historic victory.

"We've had a chance to go back to back a few times and we fell short," Shane told the Observer, “We probably were a little bit immature in the couple of finals beforehand. We were playing some of our best stuff and we just fell short on the day. Today we finally didn't, so them couple of defeats have really kind of glued us together."

It was not a perfect match for Mohill - though a win is of course a perfect result - as the south Leitrim men couldn’t see out the game when they had a lead the final quarter of the game, with a few stray passes costing them dearly in important moments, and they even looked set for defeat near the end of normal time but battled back well to stay in the match. 

"We had the game won, I made a terrible, terrible mistake. Ballinamore got a goal, we nearly lost the game. We nearly lost the game, the lads dug me out,” admitted the Mohill captain

The win means so much to the team but also to the Mohill GAA and for Shane, it was a whole club effort: "We've finally done it now. You can see what it means to the kids. I was messing with a couple of the younger lads after the first game. I met them in town, I met them at training and I said, you need to be louder behind the goals there, we need a Mohill Mafia … That's what football is all about. "

Read more: INDESCRIBABLE ECSTASY & AGONY AS MOHILL EDGE CLASSIC CONNACHT GOLD SFC FINAL BY TINIEST OF MARGINS

When he compares this match to last weeks clash between the teams, Shane felt that this was a better, more open game. "The last time it was edgy. We never really got going, we missed a couple of shots. Ballinamore said they never really got going either, they just got a lead and just stayed there. This was just tit for tat the whole way through. We played some serious football, Ballinamore played some serious football."

Quinn empathised with Ballinamore men after they lost the game in such heartbreaking circumstances: "The penalties are a cruel, cruel way to go out. I've been on the opposite side of it three times. I know it's horrible, but it's great to be Champions again."

For him winning the double marks a hurdle crossed, but it is also a big win for his team which he feels has had to adapt massively to retain their championship: "We've had a massive turnaround of players too that no-one kind of talks about. Everyone talks about a lot of teams losing players, but we lost five starters from the starting team last year. So we've had to kind of rebuild again. But we rebuild as champions."