Young guns deliver for James gang
By Brendan O’Brien
IT’S the calm before the storm.

Brian McEvoy is sitting quietly in the corner of an empty James Stephens dressing room at the end of a game that he will remember forever. His team-mates are still out on the pitch, soaking up the sensation that comes with being All-Ireland champions. McEvoy takes his shirt off to reveal an upper body covered in bruises. He winces slightly as he touches his shoulder. But he is smiling.

“This is unreal, I’ve won two All-Irelands with Kilkenny and Leinsters as well, but if I had to I’d swap them all for this one. You go to school with these lads, play on the same teams as them your whole life. That’s what’s so special.”



But it’s not just the players that make this different.

“Lads like Noel Ryan there who takes care of the hurleys, this means even more to lads like Noel. We’re all here for the love of the club. Nothing else.

“We were confident at half-time. We knew that having a younger team would suit us, especially our forwards. I think the oldest of them is 23. Lads like Eoin McCormack and Eoin Larkin are always going to get you scores and that pitch suited them perfectly. We were playing it in low to them and it worked well for us.”

It was a day when The Village could do no wrong. All over the field players were performing at their peak, maybe even beyond that. Manager Adrian Finan enters the dressing room shaking his head with a wry smile that tells you he can’t believe how smoothly everything has just gone. Management sure looks easy at times like this.

“You hope on a day like this of all days that things will go smoothly for you but you can never dream of this. I was standing there on the sideline and I was counting off every player thinking ‘what do I need to do?’ I didn’t need to do anything. From one to fifteen they were all doing their jobs.

“All year we’ve been playing in 40-45 minute bursts and it’s got us through but today was the first time we managed to out together a full 60-minute performance and what a day to do it.”

Picking out one man above all his peers was an almost impossible task but Finan nods his head in the direction of McEvoy.

“Brian was superb, especially in the first half and Paddy O’Brien did his bit too. He chipped in with a couple of crucial scores when we needed them. At half-time I said to the lads that the last 20 minutes would suit us.

“We’re a younger team, especially up front and the wide spaces would begin to show some gaps later on. I can’t praise those guys enough. They’re an absolutely brilliant bunch. They knew what to do and they went out and did it.”

At that, all hell breaks loose. Players, selectors, officials sweep into the room, shouting, singing, cheering and, in one case, even crying.

It’s pandemonium, but Philly Larkin takes a moment to share his thoughts. Full-back Martin Phelan is the man he picks out.

“Martin was huge for us out there and the corner-backs held their own against their men who were looking dangerous whenever they got the ball. Martin’s been like that all year for us though.”

Phelan shrugs off the plaudits though. “I knew I’d have my work cut out today,” he explains. “Last October when we won the county final the first thing I did the next day was pick up the papers and see who else came through around the country.

“Athenry were the first team to catch my eye and even then I was thinking about what it would be like to mark Eugene Cloonan. To be honest, I’d rather be marking someone I knew a lot about than a guy I knew nothing about.

“The forwards were superb for us there today though, but then, they’ve been winning matches for us all year. The defenders have the easy job.”

 Acknowledgements to the Irish Examiner