BY TOM LYONS
Goleen captain Padraig Reidy reveled in his side’s impressive win but is hoping the Mizen men can add to a season of success.
‘This is my third year as captain, three cups this year so far and one last year so we won’t complain. One big one left to capture,’ he said on Saturday.
‘We knew today that if we settled into our rhythm we have the footballers to do the job. The manager has put a system in place and we’ve been developing that all season and we knew once we settled into it, we’d be okay. I suppose after about 10 minutes today we clicked. We dominated the game from there on.
‘We’ve been training since January 4th, started on the dunes in Barleycove and put in a huge amount of work since. It’s all coming to fruition now.
‘We know we have the panel and the fitness, and the management don’t allow standards to drop at any stage. Donal McGrath has set up the system and has improved us so much in the past 12 months. We’ll be much better prepared going up to junior A next season than if we had gone up this season. We have momentum too and that pushes you on.
‘We’re a small parish and we need to keep everybody on board. We stick together and we won’t be playing championship until late July next year, something we’re not used to as a junior B team, so it will give us a good chance to do a proper pre-season. We’ll be going up a grade in the league as well so it will be all go. We’ll focus in on the open county now, and who knows, maybe a Munster championship before we turn our attention to junior A and the 2025 season.’
Goleen manager Shane O’Neill paid tribute to his side’s commitment. ‘The work Donal McGrath has put in with them, on and off the field, has been superb and thankfully they have bought into the process.
‘There’s seven lads there travelling from Cork every Tuesday night, leaving Cork at six o’clock, not back again until 11, that’s a fair commitment from those lads. It gives the whole squad an energy to see that commitment.
‘It’s nearly into November now and you have to respect the lads’ bodies, their families, their partners. You saw the hunger that was there to go back-to-back, and we know that hunger is great but you can’t abuse it either. We’ll run into some strong second teams now but we’ll give it a good crack and represent West Cork as best we can. The year we’ve had, it’s brilliant for a small community and it should be a good Christmas in the Mizen.’
