Cuala boss praises Errigal Ciaran’s ‘quality and spirit’

RELIEVED Cuala manager Austin O’Malley praised the ‘quality and spirit’ of Errigal Ciaran as his side survived an heroic comeback from the Tyrone champions to clinch the Andy Merrigan Cup for the first time in their history on Sunday at Croke Park.

The south Dublin side appeared to be in easy street as they surged clear and built up a 3-9 to 0-5 half-time cushion, with Errigal looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

However with Peter Harte spearheading a power-packed second half showing, Errigal appeared on course to pull off a barely believable come from behind triumph, only for Cuala to eventually score a couple of late clinching points.

O’Malley insisted afterwards that the nature of the Errigal performance after the break didn’t come as a huge surprise given the battling traits exhibited by the Tyrone team all the way through the Championship.

“Given who Errigal have beaten and the games they have been in, even watching them last weekend against Dr Crokes, we were fully aware they were going to come at us.  We even spoke about it at half-time.

“We put a nice bit of daylight between ourselves and them in the first half and I thought our patterns were pretty fluid. Things that we had worked on last year came through for us but full credit to Errigal, their quality and their spirit was brilliant.

“I know all about it with their history. When they came on they really rolled their sleeves up and really tested us. It got a little closer than I would have liked at times. But full credit to our guys, they still managed to pinch those vital scores and that allowed us that bit of a cushion to see it out at the end there.

“It was a case of understanding what was coming and trying to weather it and then stick to our own principles and things that have served up so well.”

The Cuala boss stated that the mettle of his charges had been tested often times this past season and he added that they had never been found wanting in that regard.

“We have been in these situations before through the Dublin Championship which is so cut throat.

“Teams come at you there and score in heavy patches so we certainly had experienced that before and I think that probably stood to us though to counter that some people might say that is a weakness within our game that we shouldn’t let teams back.

“But when you get to this end of a Championship you are coming up against such quality that teams are going to wrestle momentum away from you and they definitely tend to get scores when they do so.”

Reflecting on Cuala’s success as a whole O’Malley stated that yesterday’s All-Ireland win marked the culmination of a very memorable journey.

“ It’s a very special feeling and I am so grateful to the club for giving me the opportunity to be here and be involved and manage these guys. For our whole group the season all year has been built on growth and opportunity.

“We create a vision around being successful and going after certain key targets. Winning a Dublin Championship first was a really key one for us to get across the line and the manner in which we did it.

” Beating Kilmacud Crokes who have been unbelievable champions gave us a sense of ourselves and em boldened our spirit and identity.  I think we then took a lot from the Naas game in Leinster as they were a real quality side and it has just grown since. To round it off like this today is just incredible.”