Crowning moment for Devane

By Joe Scully

“It’s unbelievable, you can see every sort of emotion there on the field still, we’re absolutely thrilled, we’re over the moon to finally get over the line,” the words of Clonoulty/Rossmore captain Cait Devane after finally getting her hands on the O’Dowd Cup after five final losses in six years prior to last Saturday.

“This has been building the last couple of years, and it’s such a relief and such joy to finally get over the line,” she added.

“If you look back on it that first five, ten minutes of the second half, we really upped the tempo, and we really hurt them on the scoreboard, and I don’t think they really ever recovered from that.

“They came back at us in the final five minutes, and they asked an awful lot of us, and I thought we stood up to every challenge.

“I mentioned it last week, the maturity that’s in this team, we are on the road a good few years now and the maturity definitely showed through in the last ten minutes, when it needed too.”

Devane was also delighted with the character her side showed especially in the aftermath of Karen Kennedy’s goal late on which reduced the deficit to just three points.

“When you have Karen Kennedy running at your defence and buries one to the net to leave just three in it, and you’re thinking, oh no here we go again,” she admitted.

“That’s a credit to Thurles they were never going to lie down, they are an unbelievable side and I have no doubt they will be back stronger next year.

“But we showed some great character in the aftermath of the goal, and you have the likes of Eimear (Bourke) who got player of the match and I’m delighted for her she really stood up for us today, she was winning ball and got some unbelievable scores and that was the difference, and like you said we responded really well when they came back at us and delighted with that.”