Mangan heaps praise on super Castletown Geoghegan display
As understandably delirious and emotional Castletown-Geoghegan fans continued to hug each other on the TEG Cusack Park pitch around 3pm last Sunday afternoon, team manager Alan Mangan kindly took the time to talk to the assembled media after his charges had sensationally dumped the competition favourites Thomastown out of the race for the Leinster senior hurling club title.
His initial – and typically magnanimous – thoughts were: “This was a massive performance and we have been striving to get to this level for years. A massive amount of work has gone into the club long before I was the manager. This has been a long number of years in the making. We’re not foolish enough to think it is just this year or last year that was behind this win.” He went on to rhyme off the names of current and past management and backroom personnel with great sincerity.
When it was put to him that his troops could have dropped their heads after the concession of an early goal (scored by Luke Connellan), the winning bainisteoir honed in on the great spirit within the Castletown ranks, stating: “I heard a podcast by Jody Gormley during the week which said that if your best players are your leaders, it will take you a long way. Our best players are our leaders and they are driving this. They are leading from the front and you can’t over-estimate how good that is for the younger lads.”
He continued: “I think we were 1-6 to 0-4 down at one stage, but we battled back to go in just a point down at half-time. We’ve been playing better in the second half all year, I don’t know why. So, we knew at half-time that we had a really, really good chance. Obviously, the sending-off (of Jonjo Farrell in the 32nd minute) affected things. I didn’t see the incident. But we’ve often seen teams with 14 men battle back before and win games but, thankfully, our lads stepped up to the plate today and we got the win. Shane Clavin, in particular, and Aonghus Clarke helped to sweep up a lot of ball when we had the extra man. We know that this is just one win today, and next week (against Kilcormac-Killoughey as it later transpired) is every bit as important.”
The 2004 Delaney Cup final replay hero lauded his charges’ all-round commitment: “Even days when we are not training, the lads are always down on the pitch pucking balls. They are not just tapping balls to each other, they are working on their touch and trying to do things right. Listen, hurling is all about first touch. Luckily enough, our first touch was on the money today and we got the victory.”
He was reminded of some bad days in the same competition against Kilkenny representatives. In this regard, he stated: “We went down there two years ago when I was in charge and we conceded three goals in the early stages to Ballyhale (Shamrocks) and we said we wouldn’t let that happen today. Unfortunately, we did concede one early on, but it was a great goal and hard to defend against. But you’d have to admire the work rate and the attitude of the players that they didn’t let that affect them.”
Mangan was asked to comment on Niall O’Brien’s haul of 1-13, and he opined: “He’s an unbelievable hurler. He’s been the best hurler in Westmeath for years. He proved it again today. But the backs were brilliant today also. They stood up to the plate.
“In and around midfield, Peter Clarke is a great young lad. In fact, I don’t have one bad word to say about any lad from number 1 to 34.”
“But, listen, today isn’t worth a damn if we don’t put in another performance this day week,” he concluded.