Ballinamore threw the kitchen sink at Salthill says Mark Henry

​It wasn’t for the want of trying that Ballinamore Sean O’Heslins didn’t get the better of Salthill Knocknacarra in Sunday’s AIB Connacht Club SFC clash as manager Mark Henry proudly proclaimed of his players that “they threw the kitchen sink at it!”

​In the aftermath of the 3-16 to 2-15 loss, Henry confirmed that he was stepping down but his dominant feelings were of pride mixed with regret! Speaking to the Observer, Mark said “It's hard to balance the disappointment with the pride, I've said that to the boys but that doesn't take away the genuine disappointment in that dressing room.”

The seeds of Ballinamore’s performance were sown in the aftermath of their replay victory over Fenagh St Caillins in the County Final: “When we get back to the park in Ballinamore after the replayed county final, we were getting a bite of food before we headed down into the town and we spoke about this day and putting our best foot forward. “And I got a sense that evening that the boys wanted to really go after this.

“They worked and prepared really, really well over the last two weeks. We really felt that we could get a result here today, we genuinely did. Now we knew that we'd have to be at the top of our game and that maybe they'd have to be slightly off but we felt that was possible. So there's huge disappointment in the Ballinamore dressing room. But I'm hugely proud of that performance.

“As I said, they threw the kitchen sink at it. Their physicality, their courage and their skill, I think was just testament to them as a group of young fellas.”

Mark admitted that there were times when Salthill threatened to put daylight between the teams but again, the Ballinamore manager stressed his team’s total commitment: “I kept looking at the scoreboard at those times as well, thinking, are they going to stretch it out? But our boys just refused to go away. Kick out after kick out, they just fired themselves at the ball in the air and on the ground and they just kept going. It's so disappointing because they played so well, pushed them so hard and just come up that little bit short.”

The quality in Salthill’s ranks certainly impressed Henry: “You can't take away from the fact that they have some of the best players in the country playing out there. Like Maher, Finnerty, Thompson is just ….. we actually talked about during the week, he'd be a joy to watch if we didn't have to deal with him. That's what we said to the lads during the week and he is, Thompson is a joy to watch.

“But we did our best with those guys, they're very talented. We were knocking on the door, trying to bang the door down but they have such quality that they can come up the pitch and then just execute brilliantly and nail you with a goal. All of a sudden, you're four, five, six down again so it's very difficult to deal with that level of quality. But again, I'll go back to what I thought on the day, that our boys matched them in so many facets.”

Mark, however, was pleased with how his team battled around the middle of the park, particularly in the second half: “In terms of that midfield battle, we were very disappointed at half time. They had beaten us hands down in the middle of the field. Obviously, we talked about the importance of that over the last two weeks. But we did redress that in the second half and got a supply of ball to our forwards. And as I've said to you guys loads of times, if we can get ball to them, they'll do damage.”

The loss of Paul Honeyman to a second yellow card immediately after Tom Prior’s goal also hit Ballinamore’s chances of pulling off a shock: “I genuinely didn't see it, I didn't know Paul had been sent off until he appeared at the line beside me, you know yourself, it's chaos at times, you know.

“Obviously, he had picked up the yellow earlier on and fell victim to the second one. That was disappointing. It maybe robbed us of a wee bit of oxygen just at that stage but that's not to take away anything from Paul, Paul Honeyman put in a savage performance then again today and has done all year with this team.”