Aughnasheelin were considerably the better team admits Kiltubrid's Dockery

Never one to shy away from the reality of a game, Adrian Dockery felt his Kiltubrid team were flat in last Saturday’s Smith Monumentals Intermediate Championship Final but also stressed that Aughnasheelin were “considerably the better team”.

The Kiltubrid manager got right to the point when asked about the game: “Just flat - the first half kicking into a strong breeze, we worked a couple of  chances but didn’t take anything and Aughnasheelin went up the other end, they were far, far more efficient and over the course of the 60 minutes, they were considerably the better team.”

Aughnasheelin storm into Final as Kiltubrid finish with 12 players

AUGHNASHEELIN 1-8 KILTUBRID 0-5

Adrian didn’t think Aughnasheelin’s early goal got them off to a perfect start but said his team never got into their rhythm: “Sometimes if you are going to concede a goal, maybe early is the best time to do it, to give you a chance to settle into it but we never seemed to find a rhythm and that’s down to pressure on by Aughnasheelin. 

“Some of our lads had a great shift out there, Fergal McWeeney and some of the boys had really strong performances. Maybe some of the other boys will be a little disappointed they didn’t get to show what they’re capable of doing but that’s football sometimes.

“If you can get those couple of scores to keep you in touch but we were struggling there, we were six points down at the break and we thought in the second half, we’d get motoring here but it just didn’t happen and our discipline went completely - we just started picking up cards all over the place. I think we finished with 12.”

Losing three players in the second half didn’t help but Adrian  had no issues with the referee Kevin Mallon’s decision but was curious to know why a team with a good disciplinary record would suddenly struggle: “No issues with that but I’d be interested to see the stats because I think that might be our first reds and possibly our first black card in competitive football this year. 

“It just all came together but sometimes pressure will do that to you and Aughnasheelin were very good at applying that pressure. Wayne Gilgunn, the likes of those lads, I know them well so there are few guys there who have won two Intermediates, they know what it is about and they’ve a great group of young guys coming up there like Darragh Gunn, the young Cullens.

“They are blending it well, they know what it is about and you could see they are very well coached. Aaron Hoare had a great game in the middle of the park.”

Brilliant Annaduff blow Allen Gaels away with power packed second half

ANNADUFF 3-13 ALLEN GAELS 2-9

As tough as it was to lose, Adrian hopes a young Kiltubrid side can learn from the harsh lessons they received on Saturday: “No qualms in terms of result in terms of better team winning, a little bit disappointed for our lads - there is a lot of young Kiltubrid lads there and a couple more coming in next year so this is unfortunately part of the painful learning process that sometimes you have to go through as a group. 

“I hope that the lads stay together for next year and just regroup and push it on. Sometimes it feels like the bottom has gone out of the boat on a day like today but if you look at this season in its entirety, it is definitely a couple of steps forward from last year. We’ll try and take whatever few positives we can out of it and try and learn from the harsh and hard lessons we learned today.”