This article is from page 69 of the 2011-08-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 69 JPG
WHEN the final whistle blew Padraig Hickey was billeted in his left corner forward position – it was one of the few times – nay the only time – he was stationary, because for the previous hour he’d been a ball of energy.
He was everywhere, but most of all he was the man of the match by the near marathon it is in miles from Cusack Park to his home patch in Glenomora Park in Broadford. All to do with his tour de force of 1-4 over the hour that contributed more than anything else to Clare’s remarkable victory.
“1-4,” he says, “but it should have been 1-6 because I missed a few chances at the end. I’m delighted, not for myself, but for the team to be in an All-Ireland final. It’s brilliant.
“We were really on the back foot when it started out, but for the goal the ball kind of broke out to me. As a forward it’s nice to get a break like that and we got a bit of heart from that.
“In the forward line, we were in their to do a job. Get the ball over the bar and in the net. It’s as simple as that. The boys outside trust us to do that. We did it today.
“Galway could have been more ahead at half-time, but we kept it to three points. It was very important to get that goal, but keeping the scoreboard ticking over with points was just as important, because we were in the game from then and in touch with them.
“When we went in at half-time we talked about what happened – that we had conceded those two goals, yet were still only those three points down.
“We all knew those first ten minutes of the second half were going to be very important. Luckily we tacked on a few scores and we really rolled on in the final 20 minutes,” adds, before pausing to draw some breath.
And no player rolled better than Hickey, his 44th minute point when running onto a pass from Niall Gil ligan was sublime; the point a minute later showed his determination, while the all-important goal inside four minutes was the perfect riposte and strike that threw a badly needed life buoy to Clare’s All-Ireland final ambitions.
“Once we got back level and once we got the lead we knew that we’d beat them,” he says. “It was then that the Cork and Limerick games really stood to us. Galway had no championship game, but we’d be through two tough games.
“In the Cork game with 15 minutes to go, we really kicked on to win the game. We didn’t really kick on in the Limerick game, but we knew we had to do it against Galway. It took a huge effort, but everybody just set their mind to it.” Couldn’t compete with Kevin Keehan and was in all sorts of trouble early on. But brilliant in the second half in the corner.