Charlestown manager praises his team's resilience under Kiltubrid pressure
With Charlestown celebrations still going strong, manager Fergal O’Gara pointed to his team’s resilience in eking out the match winning score against Kiltubrid in Saturday’s Connacht LGFA Intermediate Club Final in Ballintubber, writes John Connolly.
Once he caught his breath and gathered his thoughts, commenting “I’m just beginning to settle now”, Fergal pointed to the composure his team showed after Kiltubrid drew level near the end of Saturday’s thrilling Final.
“Sometimes when a game goes level, a team goes ‘hang on a second, we’re not defending anymore and we have to go out and try to win this’,” said Fergal, “If we don’t try to win it, against that wind, we’re going to be in bother. The girls dug deep and created that one chance that got us across the line.”
Kiltubrid's resurgence was something Fergal expected, particularly with the strong wind: “Of course, that was always going to happen with the wind, it was just a matter of holding on good and tight and creating a score.
“We’re normally fairly good against the wind, we put the ball through our hands an awful lot but just to create that score at the end, to create the free and to have the composure for the midfielders and defenders to work the ball up to the 20 yard line, got the free and Deirdre obviously took the free.”
Scoring wise the game was dominated by Michelle Guckian and Charlestown’s Deirdre Doherty, both players singled out for special mention in the presentation speeches but Fergal highlighted the performances put in by both teams’ defensive and midfield units.
“Michelle is known country wide, no more than our Deirdre Doherty is known country wide. I don’t think it was a shootout between them as such, I know they got the scores but there were massive performances from both defences and midfielders. Midfields were breaking tackles - our midfielders were doing an awful lot of breaking up the field.”