“We dug deep today”, says winning manager, Johnny Greville

With seven minutes of normal time remaining and Raharney trailing by six points, victorious manager Johnny Greville’s post-match assertion that “it didn’t look great” was undoubtedly an understatement. However, the Deelsiders’ refusal to panic saw them eke out a famous victory in a thrilling finale to last Sunday’s county senior hurling final.In the end, a switch often used with his goalkeeping father Sean in bygone days worked a treat for the new champions. “We were sceptical about bringing Paul Greville up to the full forward line because we didn’t want to leave a weakness at the back, but we had to do something and three balls went in and we got the scores. One thing I said all year is that you never give up, no matter what way it’s going. You don’t panic. You always keep digging and digging and keep going. We dug deep today and we came up trumps in the last few minutes,” an elated Johnny said, shortly after sportingly offering his commiserations in a devastated Clonkill dressing room.When asked whether Brian Connaughton was under instructions to go for the match-winning goal from a close-range free deep into injury-time, the blue and whites’ bainisteoir was unequivocal: “Definitely - the minute we got the free. We have been working on that for weeks. He did it in the Leinster championship in 2006 to get us a replay. We knew we had that in our locker and thank God it crept in today. Some people in the crowd were shouting for us to take a point and go for the next ball. But we have guts and we have bottle, and we showed with that free that we definitely wanted it.”When asked as to whether he agreed with the general consensus that the final had been the best in years, Johnny immediately opined, “I can’t remember it,” before laughing loudly. “You get caught up in it,” he added, “although as a player last year, I was more nervous. I was happy with our preparation this year. We had the work done and we had the bunch of players that we felt were going to make the difference today. And they did.”Clonkill went very close to becoming the first hurling team from the Lake County to reach a Leinster club senior final last year and Greville was hopeful that this year’s newly-crowned champions would emulate the green and golds’ heroics in 2009. “We’ll take each game as it comes and we face Coolderry in a fortnight. Westmeath are in the Liam McCarthy Cup next year and we have to be showing progression. It’s the same at club level. We’ll work hard and try and knuckle down and represent the county as best we can and maybe get a run in Leinster,” the manager concluded, before returning to a delirious winners’ dressing room.