"It’s just really special" - Kelly lost for words after inspirational display
Liam McGovern and Roisin Byrne celebrate
Man-of-the-match Barry Kelly went through all the emotions on the sideline having been forced to come off with a calf strain late in the game.
“It wasn’t good (watching on the sideline). It wasn’t good,” he told the Kildare Nationalist.
“The linesman was telling me to get in, I just had my jersey over my head.” He found it hard to sum up the post-match feelings.
“It’s just really special. Nobody else deserves this only them group of lads. Looking at the management team as well. They’re all just Athy men, pure Athy and… yeah, I’m stuck for words, I don’t know what to say, I’m just so happy.” Bad calves run in the family he tells us, that and a fair amount of football talent it must be said.
“I actually think I pulled the calf about fifteen minutes into the game, but I just said I can’t go off now, I may stay going anyway but I started cramping up near the end. I wouldn’t have the best calves. But sure look, it’s all worth it now.” “Niall, corner forward, Brian is a sub, only after coming on to the panel. My da (Joe) was on the ’87 team that won the county final and that just makes it all the more special. Everyone said he had bad calves too.” Kelly has often been the workhorse whose doggedness sets up scores for others but, on this occasion, he was on fire in front of the posts, scoring 1-3.
“I was in the right position at the right time (for the goal) I suppose. Other lads did the work to give me the ball, so I won’t take all the credit myself. I just saw the ball hopping and just drove onto it and I said here this is it. I struck it and looked up to the crowd and lads were going mental.” The side were delighted to be a point up at half-time he told us.
“Our goal coming into the game was to keep Naas, even if they’re three points up at half-time, that will be okay. But a point up. I don’t think Naas have beaten any team going in losing at half-time. That drove us on even more.” Certainly, no one drove them more than Barry Kelly on the day.
It’s almost unique in this day and age for a senior club to operate with an all-local management team, and you certainly got the feeling it was something that made an eighth county title all the more special for the Athy men.
Joint manager Conor Ronan soldiered on the field for the club as did the other joint manager Ross Bell, James Eaton and Paddy Dunne, and it was clear how much it meant to Ronan when he spoke to the Kildare Nationalist afterwards.
“It's very special. Myself and Rossie took it on and then we were saying who would we get. James was our first choice to come in as coach, I know he only finished playing last year but he’s an exceptional man as a coach, just the way he sees football as well. Anything he’s asked them to do, they’ve took to it,” he told us.
“Paddy, we brought in as well, the three of us would have soldiered with Paddy for years on the field and it’s just the way he sees the game, just his football IQ, his football intelligence, whatever you want to call it. His analysis of the opposition is just unbelievable. It’s always special when you win it, but when you win it with your own it something… I don’t know how to describe it really.”
Ronan thought their defensive game was excellent, despite fine performance from Ryan Sinkey and Alex Beirne for Naas, reserving special praise for Pádraic Spillane, called up to the Kildare panel in the summer.
“As soon as the semi-final was over the first question Padraic wanted to know was who have I got in the county final. He was delighted to know it was Darragh Kirwan, to challenge himself. I didn’t realise he was scoreless, that’s unbelievable. I know Alex Beirne kicked a couple of two-pointers early doors, but I think in fairness to (Pádraic’s brother) Michael Spillane, he kept him fairly quiet for the rest of the game. Sinkey: Dessie Lawler was on Sinkey, and he did very well for large parts as well. These forwards are good players but it’s about the collective and the team effort. The sum of the parts as we would say is what will win us games.” He couldn’t not talk about Barry Kelly’s influence of course and was full of praise for the livewire centre-forward.
“Barry, in fairness to him, he’s been our leader from the start. We made him captain for the League, and he really took it on, just giving all he can, even though his body sometimes hasn’t let him. He’s took nearly a week off after every game this year. He’s just grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and his carrying ball, his covering, I’d say his GPS stats are fairly impressive there today. He’s just the one player, awonderful character. Obviously, there’s been question marks over Barry and in fairness to him this year, his discipline has been second to none. I think in the whole championship this year, maybe four yellow cards are all we’ve been given against us and it’s something we did stress this year that if we’re disciplined and we’re controlled we have the ability to do damage.”
Athy captain David Hyland took a swipe at perceived slights from various parties ranging from the bookies and the Leinster Council to the local newspapers in his victory speech. You take your motivation wherever you can and it clearly worked for Athy.
On the pitch afterwards Hyland spoke of the collective effort when asked about particular individual performances such as those of Cathal McCarron and Barry Kelly.
“McCarron really reeled back the years. Everyone to a man was really brilliant back there. Lads were given certain jobs, and it was really on the rest of us kind of out around the middle and half-forward line to give those lads dig outs but everyone to a man… Barry Kelly got man-of-the-match, you probably could have given it to five or ten lads.” He didn’t feel particularly worried by their conversion rate in the opening half (which was 50%).
“Somebody said to me there we kicked a lot of wides in the first half. I didn’t feel that. I don’t know what that was. I always thought we were in control. You know the way you play games and a wide it kind of drains you. I never felt that. I always thought we were always on top around the middle and had a foothold in the game. Never lost confidence.”
Kevin Feely has been here before of course, in 2011 and 2020, but this win certainly felt different to him to the 2020 “covid” final with barely 200 people in the old ground.
“So different,” he told the Kildare Nationalist afterwards. “More so at the end of the game. I forgot what it’s like at the final whistle with a full crowd there, what happens. It kind of almost took me by surprise there at the end, the scenes there were unbelievable. 2020 was extremely special, absolutely no doubt about that but I think having absolutely everyone here supporting us today made it that little bit more special.” The town and local businesses had rallied around the team in the lead up to the game but with his experience Feely clearly saw the need to keep the focus on the match itself.
“You are almost trying to reign all that in and not get too carried away with it. It’s very easy to get a bit too emotional with it when you see the supporters behind you in a small town like Athy and what it means to them. It’s unbelievable that we’re able to give it back to them by doing this. It’s one of the best days I’ve ever had.” The team were happy enough going in a point up at the interval, Barry Kelly’s goal having sparked them at four points down.
“That was the thought at half-time. We haven’t really started playing yet and we’re a point up. So, we kind of knew that if we start to deliver on our game plan a little bit better and shooting a little bit better – I thought our conversion was pretty poor in the first half – we thought there’s no reason we can’t win this game. So, it was positive talk in the sense that we knew we hadn’t started playing yet. And if we upped our level a little bit that would hopefully be enough. But again, that’s against a team of unbelievable quality in Naas, they can always up their levels as well and it probably made for a good second half I’d say to watch.” He was full of praise for Barry Kelly and Seán Moore in particular but the biggest sign it was going to be their day was when the big number six started popping over points like he was in the playground.
“McCarron’s (points) certainly wasn’t expected. To be fair, back in the day, the outside of the boot, he was always very, very good at it. You kind of got a feeling that when that outside of the boot one went over the bar I thought ‘maybe jeez this may be our day’.”
