Teehan and Sullivan reflect on Offaly victory as final now beckons

By Daragh Ó Conchúir

Both Offaly and Kerry made no bones about using the pain of narrow defeats in last year’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Intermediate Championship semi-finals to help get them over the line at Cedral St Conleth’s Park last Saturday.

It wasn’t that their valiant victims, Antrim and Down did not have their own motivational fuel in that type of department, having been relegated from senior fare 12 months ago. That could be seen in the devastation upon the ranks of the vanquished but the winners take the spoils and set the narrative.

Whatever about anyone’s ability to place more value on one stimulus over another, it is evident that Offaly and Kerry were driven by the hurt inflicted upon them by eventual winners Cork and Kilkenny respectively. And in players of the match Mairéad Teehan (Offaly) and Patrice Diggin (Kerry), the victors had elite operators.

Teehan had a shot well saved by Caitriona Graham in the first half, but she made amends with a brilliant goal five minutes after the resumption to help Offaly turn a two-point interval lead into seven.

Her cousin, Grace Teehan kept the scoreboard ticking over from placed balls and play and that cushion proved crucial as a Róisín McCormick inspired Antrim brought it back to the minimum by the final whistle, 1-16 to 2-12.

“It was some tough battle,” said an emotional Mairéad. “Just absolutely delighted. It was such a team performance there and it means so much to be going up to Croke Park in four weeks’ time with Offaly and with those girls. They’re just such a fantastic team. I’m proud to be part of it and delighted.

“Antrim are a very, very good team. We knew that coming into this. They beat us by two points at the beginning of the Championship so we knew we were going to be up against it. But we knew if we could just get a performance and work as hard as we could, we were in with a chance.”

Speaking about her goal, Mairéad said: “I was trying to make up for the one I missed in the first half, but all the scores were hard come by.”

Offaly manager David Sullivan referred to harbouring bitter disappointment about last year’s loss, as they felt it was a game they should have won. Perhaps the lessons from their two-point loss to Antrim in the group stages were even more important, however.

“We fully expected to win,” Sullivan asserted. “We didn’t come up here to take part. We went to Antrim earlier in the season and gave them far too much respect and at one stage they were 11 points up on us.

“In that game we had a decision to make. We were either going to fight or we were going to be annihilated and our season could have been in ruins after it. We got it back level that day and the key was we pushed up 15 on 15 in the last 15 minutes. We knew when we did that, when we went at them, we could cause them trouble.

“Going with the sweeper just didn’t suit us and they had too many good hurlers that could outplay the sweeper and spray the ball left and right. We took huge learnings from that game in Antrim and as soon as the draw was made, we knew we would be going 15 on 15.

“We drummed it into the girls all week ‘just win your individual battle’. I think we won nine or ten positions and I don’t think the scoreboard does us justice. Antrim hung in there at times but I thought the start of the second half, end of the first half, we were really, really good.

“We probably should have been out of sight at half-time, we missed a penalty, it went over the bar, Mairéad’s shot was stopped, we had a few wides. We knew we’d left a lot behind us but we just said, ‘Don’t lose the second half by more than two points and we’re in an All-Ireland final,’ and Mairéad’s goal was the perfect tonic. It gave us that breathing room.”

For Kerry, Diggin scored 1-7 in another outstanding performance in the green and gold, while her colleague Jackie Horgan weighed in with a stupendous goal less than a minute after Diggin’s 40th minute penalty to rattle Down. Though the Mourne outfit battled hard, Kerry had established enough of a gap to see it home by 3-12 to 0-16.

“We’re absolutely over the moon,” said Diggin. “You can really take the disappointment from last year, when we lost the semi-final against Kilkenny. We were pipped in extra time by (two points) in the end and we were just going in to get back this year. Our aim was semi-final minimum and then to drive onto the next stage and thankfully we got over the line.

“We played Offaly at the start of the year and they hammered us off the field so they’re a serious outfit and we seen a bit of the match there beforehand. They’re a lovely team but we’ll enjoy the night and focus on Offaly again during the week,” she added.