Declan Lynch: “We’re a good team, but today we just fell short.”

By Brendan McTaggart

Any remnants of daylight were beginning to fade from the Belfast sky on Saturday evening as the night began to take over.  Declan Lynch was still trying to come to terms with the disappointment of losing after an unbelievable 80 plus minutes of championship football.  Despite the major disappointment, the Antrim football captain’s first thought was on Lámh Dhearg’s opponent: “Fair play to Cargin, they had a bit more craft in the end.  Fair play, they’re county champions.  That’s where you set out to be at the start of the year and they delivered.”

Analysing a defeat is never easy, to analyse a final defeat is painful yet minutes after the final whistle Lynch tried to nail where it went wrong for the Hannahstown side: “On our own performances, we made stupid mistakes.  The one thing I can say about the lads though (over the two games), we haven’t went away.  Any other team would have folded there after they got those goals but we bounced back.  We dug in and drew level and I thought we might have stolen it in injury time but we had those two goal chances at the start of extra time.  It wasn’t meant to be.

“Fair play to all of our lads, we’ve put in a massive year but we’ve fell just a second short.”

Saturday was Lámh Dhearg’s seventh championship match in 2019.  Normally if any side are lucky enough to play in seven matches in knockout football, they’re looking forward to training over the winter.  It wasn’t to be for Lynch and his teammates.  It was an incredible championship for the Lámh’s where they showed an undying spirit and fighting qualities throughout.  It took something special to end their dream and while the word character has been the buzzword for the season, Lynch stressed that his team are more than just that: “It’s been a word branded about throughout the week, after the drawn game.  ‘Fair play to Lámh Dhearg’ and all but listen, we know what’s in our changing room.  We’ve proved it over the last number of years that we have character and we probably deserve to have more spoken about us than our character.”

In fairness to Lynch, he was spot on.  Lámh Dhearg will have nightmares over the drawn game and won’t need reminding that they had outplayed Cargin for over 50 minutes but for the Erin’s Own men clawing their way back.  They played all championship with pace, intensity and defended with tenacity.  The way they broke the line with powerful runners was a focal point of their game and they pushed Cargin to their limits in the replay.  Lynch continued: “We’re a good team, but today we just fell short.  Fair play to Cargin and I do mean that.  I hope they go on now and give Ulster a crack next week.  That will be tough with a week turnaround but honestly, I wish them all the best.  They’re a good bunch of players and a great bunch of lads.”