This article is from page 66 of the 2011-11-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 66 JPG
“PATRICIA McCarthy, you have given such commitment this year as a trainer and player. You have been absolutely brilliant and thank you from each and every one of us.”
Joint Captain Michelle Wynne’s words of appreciation in her acceptance speech for Inagh’s most experienced player and also undoubtedly one of the most passionate.
This was Patricia McCarthy’s moment, the dream of a lifetime of playing and at 43, to finally win an AllIreland title was extra special.
“It’s an absolute unreal feeling. All year was simply surreal of how far we could bring this young team to. We won the county and we won the Munster and we knew it was in us today. From the start of the year, we said that there was only one place we wanted to be and that was in an AllIreland club final and now that we were here, we said we weren’t going to leave it behind us. We had to leave everything on the field, die for every ball and it was an absolute team effort from one to fifteen.”
Her undying belief in her teammates was summed up by her first half opinion.
“Ten minutes into the first half, I said to myself this game is ours. Now I wouldn’t say that to the girls because you have to keep their two feet firmly on the ground. We just weren’t converting the scores, we weren’t looking up and we weren’t calling for the ball and I said if we start doing that, we will take our scores. All we had to do was to put fast ball into the full-forward line and I knew we would score and that’s what we did in the second half, we came out and we scored four goals.
“I’m extra proud of every one of those girls. It was pure hunger, passion, pride in the jersey, determination, courage; you can use all these words and you have to have confidence in your own ability and the girl beside you. It’s a huge amount of factors that it came down to today and I must also say that the support today was absolutely fantastic.
“It’s going to be some celebration tonight in Inagh and for a couple of weeks to come.”
Plenty of time then to saviour the realisation of a lifelong dream.