BY KIERAN McCARTHY
DAMIEN Cahalane was quick to share the praise when he was described as Castlehaven’s hero on Sunday.
‘Not really, we have a lot of heroes,’ the stand-in shot-stopper said after his penalty shoot-out heroics. Instead, he singled Cathal Maguire out for special praise.
‘A lot of guys stood up when they were needed. Cathal Maguire had the game of his life in terms of taking the game constantly to Dingle,’ Cahalane said.
‘We know he has bags and bags of talent, and pace to burn. Can we get that consistently out of him and get him on enough balls so he can impose himself on the game. Today we got him on a load of ball and he constantly took the game to Dingle and it brought a lot of our guys into the game as well.’
Haven’s match-winner in the shoot-out, Cahalane scored two and saved one (when Dingle’s Tom O’Sullivan had a kick to win the final), and he leaned on his schoolboys’ soccer goalkeeping experience to see Castlehaven through.
‘Darragh (Cahalane) had a fantastic game in goal, but it was an idea that one of the lads had during the week, that if it went to penalties I might stand in goal,’ he explained.
‘I played a lot of soccer games in goal growing up so I had experience of shoot-outs and coming up against penalties. It’s a shot to nothing at that stage. Penalties are a bit of a lottery and we thought it might throw a spanner in the works for the opposition. Look, it paid off. On another day it might not have paid off.’
