'Jeez, we weren't going to throw it all away in the last 10 seconds'

ALL-IRELAND SFC SEMI-FINAL:STILL COMING down fast after the helter-skelter. Where to begin? At the beginning or the end? At the bottom or the top? After a game that had goals that should have been, goals that shouldn't, points that wooed us, and points that fooled us, this All-Ireland football semi-final turned out to be a whole lot greater than the sum of its parts.

So we turn first to Benny Coulter, the Down captain, slumped in a chair, exhausted, and ask him to begin at the end. That frenzied climax, what was going through his mind?

“Don’t really know . . .” and he does look a little lost for words.

“I was just thinking, ‘can’t lose it now . . . can’t lose it now’. They’d the 14-yard free, and I think Pat (McEnaney) said maybe 10 seconds left. So they had to go for the goal. But jeez, we worked so hard this year, we weren’t going to throw it all away in the last 10 seconds. I think Big Kalum (King) got a touch. But we definitely weren’t letting that ball go into the net. We definitely weren’t letting it through.

“And then was it over. Fantastic.”

Over in time, perhaps, but not the arguments; starting, inevitably, with where exactly Coulter was standing for his goal on 13 minutes, which swung the momentum in Down’s favour, perhaps ultimately so. So we turn to Down manager James McCartan.

“You know,” says McCartan, “when you’re along the line, you don’t see a lot of the marginal instances. If the ball was a square ball, it would take a bit of luck.

“I think it was, yeah . . .” interrupts Coulter, with that wry smile. They’re not exactly making light of the situation, but they’re agreeable, yes, that luck played its part, perhaps ultimately so.

“But there were a couple of things which I think evened it up fairly quickly,” adds McCartan. “A couple of soft frees. But I’m not trying to downplay it. Obviously we got the rub of the green with the last free kick too. It could have gone anywhere. But I’ve always said I’d rather be a lucky manager than a good one.”

Better still McCartan is proving to be a good manager and a lucky one. Yet luck aside, his team did all they could to win, and that has to be the most satisfying part. McCartan must realise that.

“I’m not sure, cause the head is still spinning. Relief, maybe. Seventeen or so minutes to go, and we were six points up. We knew the game wasn’t won, but we hoped to close it out from there. Typical of a Kieran McGeeney-Aidan O’Rourke team. They kept coming and coming. Hughie Lynch stuck over a couple of wonder scores, and then the goal came.

“Look, we were probably hanging on at the end. The ball hit the crossbar, and could have gone anywhere, obviously. It was bopping around all over the place. I was just relieved to see it stay out.

“We’d started poorly, but I felt we won the second quarter, maybe won the third quarter. And I felt we started well in the final quarter. In the last eight minutes it was basically one-way traffic, but I did feel, as with some of the Down teams I played on, we were still a scoring threat. We did sit back a bit, but when the ball went up, we were creating chances.

“We’d a few goal opportunities, too, that we possibly should have taken points from. But we were still dangerous. We kept the scoreboard ticking, and in the end, the odd point here and there, against the run of play, pushed us over the line.”

It may be that history helped push them over the line, that Down’s time has come again, especially now that McCartan is leading them.

“To be honest history is meaningless to this bunch of guys,” he says. “There’s a group of people of a certain age that it means a lot more to. But certainly, with these guys, we would like to create our own piece of history. We don’t want to be the Down team that losses a first All-Ireland. But if that happens it happens.

“I would gladly lose a record to Kerry, or lose an All-Ireland final, if I knew Down would be competing at the top table on a regular basis. If winning against Kerry meant it would take us another 16 years to get back here, I wouldn’t be happy. We want to be here, year in, year out.

“That’s easier said than done. But we’re into an All-Ireland final now. I don’t know how many Cork have been in. Certainly more than us. So we’ve another uphill task there.”

McCartan had some words too for his old college comrade, McGeeney, who hadn’t yet appeared from the losing dressing room. “Aye, I was just in there. They don’t really want to see you, but you try to be as respectful as you can. It’s difficult, but I gave a couple of words for the boys in there, because I know the demands that Mr McGeeney and Aidan O’Rourke make. Especially the year that was in it, with Dermot Earley snr. I don’t want to be patronising either. They’re a broken bunch at the minute.

“But I think they’ve the right men in charge, and they will regroup.

“There’s no doubt they have the quality, and players like Johnny Doyle, Dermot Earley deserve All-Irelands. But so do a lot of teams.

“We think we’ve a couple of men who deserve them too.”