Michael Warnock of Glen in action against Cian O'Connor of Kilmacud Crokes during the AIB GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Club Championship semi-final match between Kilmacud Crokes of Dublin, and Glen of Derry, at Páirc Esler in Newry, Down. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Every Glen supporter in Pairc Esler was emotionally drained by the end of their team’s dramatic AIB All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final victory over Kilmacud Crokes, and their players weren’t much different.
After the game, man of match, Michael Warnock, was still struggling to process the dramatic final few minutes that saw both teams score injury-time goals and Crokes miss a last-gasp chance to bring the game to extra-time.
“Madness!”, said Warnock when asked to sum up the finish. “I thought we had won it when we scored the goal; Jesus, I thought we were going to lose it whenever we conceded the goal.
“I saw Shane Walsh coming down the right hand side – luckily for us he didn’t execute it.
“It was a game of pandemonium, to be honest. In the first half it looked like we were going really well. Cruising. Kilmacud will probably say they were quite passive.
“In the second half they started getting a real press on our kick-outs, put us under trouble. We’ll have to try and resolve that for the next day.
“It’s been two games now that the neutrals have been able to enjoy. There’s been a lot of hype around Gaelic football at the moment and the way it’s going – thankfully, club football is alive and well.”
An epic game of football was made all the more dramatic by the setting, with Pairc Esler shrouded in a freezing fog that made it nigh on impossible to see what was happening on the far side of the pitch from wherever you were situated yourself.
“We were no different,” said Warnock. “You were looking up the pitch wondering what side the ball was coming.
“There were times you couldn’t see the ball up the far end. It was difficult but it was the same for both teams. You just had to get on with it.”
Shane Walsh of Kilmacud Crokes is tackled by Michael Warnock of Glen during the AIB GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Club Championship semi-final match between Kilmacud Crokes of Dublin, and Glen of Derry, at Páirc Esler in Newry, Down. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
Glen looked like they were on the way to comfortably avenging last year's All-Ireland Final defeat to the same opposition when they led by seven points 11 minutes into the second-half, but Warnock wasn’t surprised the game ultimately went down to the wire.
“Knowing the competition and knowing Kilmacud, they're All-Ireland champions, and we said at half-time we were going to get a reaction from them,” he said.
“Players like Paul Mannion and Shane Walsh, they're mavericks, and they can change a game in a second and Shane Walsh did that with a pass for the goal that was just absolutely unbelievable.
“There's very few players would do that. You have to tip your hat to him for that.
“Look, we knew it had to go right to the wire. Unfortunately we made it very, very tough on ourselves. We'll have to iron that out for the next day.
The next day is the AIB All-Ireland Club SFC Final against Roscommon and Connacht champions, St. Brigid’s, on Sunday, January 21st.
The experience of losing last year’s Final will surely stand to Glen, but Warnock isn’t taking anything for granted.
“Aye, look, they're probably in a similar boat to us last year and we're in the same boat as Kilmacud. Hopefully we can come out on top the next day but there's no guarantee of that.
“They're obviously in an All-Ireland Final for a reason coming through Connacht one of the toughest provinces there is. They beat Corofin in a Connacht Final and they're probably the best club team Ireland has ever seen.
“So we're going to be up against it here. You're just hoping that in two weeks we can bring a performance.
“We’re going to have to be a lot, lot better. We were very good in the first half, not so good in the second half. So we’ll have to regroup and see what went wrong.
“Hopefully now we can go one step further this year.”
