‘I am hugely proud of the lads and what they’ve done’ - Lawler
By Gerry Buckley
While Coláiste Mhuire’s dreams of reaching the Corn Uí Dhúill final ended in SETU Carlow last Wednesday afternoon, the Mullingar team manager Micheál Lawler was still full of positives after a glorious debut campaign in the senior ‘A’ grade.
Lawler is a County Kilkenny native himself and it was one of the two major schools from the Marble County capital which put paid to Coláiste Mhuire’s hopes of reaching the decider. While there is no denying that Kilkenny CBS were worthy winners, they were made to fight all the way by a skilful and gutsy side in green and navy.
This was an understandable source of pride to the losing manager, who opined: “There was a five- or six-minute spell there in the second half where they probably broke through the line and they got their runners through, which wasn’t happening in the first half. They tagged on three goals in quick succession. That was the winning and losing of the game. That’s sport. I don’t think we were that far off. It took us a while to settle in the first half, but I thought the boys settled well. They can be extremely proud.”
He continued: “They never gave up and that was a key trait all year. We knew we had hurling, but it’s attitude, it’s work rate, all of that. These boys are great young lads. They have bright futures whether they go the hurling or football route, you don’t know at inter-county level, but I definitely hope that they will continue to hurl for the next couple of years and see where it takes them. I am hugely proud of the lads and what they’ve done.”
In truth, a mauling looked on the cards when the winners led by five clear goals after 49 minutes, but the Mullingar bainisteoir lauded what followed: “The game is never over until the final whistle goes, and it comes down to a never-say-die attitude. Anything can happen in these type of games – a bounce of the ball and the like. We had a couple of chances ourselves and probably should have stuck in another one or two. On another day they go in, and we had a disallowed ‘goal’ too. Against the quality of Kilkenny CBS or St Kieran’s, you need to take every chance.”
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out today but, overall, for the development of hurling and for what we are trying to do in the school, I think this has been a huge step forward. It’s not about winning Leinsters, it’s about these lads playing at a higher standard and I think they’ve proved today and over the last couple of games that they deserve to be here,” he concluded.