John Paul Murphy delighted with attitude of St Vincent's players

THE temperature was hot and so was the football as St Vincent’s took on Glanmire in the Bon Secours IAFC at Mayfield on Saturday.

The rivalry between these two goes back to 2006, when it took three games to separate the sides, with Vincent’s winning in the end.

On Saturday, though there would be no replay, it looked like it could end level again.

Both sides had their periods of dominance but it took a late Gerard Kelleher point to secure a 4-8 to 2-13 win for the Saints.

A draw would have secured their passage to the quarter-final but that late point meant they got their second win of the group stages to now take on Adrigole in the quarter-final.

A huge part of their win was Blake Murphy’s nine-minute second-half hat-trick that turned the game on its head.

The Cork player led by example in that half and took the game to Glanmire and at times they simply had no answer as he finished with 3-6.

Looking on from the sideline was John Paul Murphy, proud father of Blake, but on this occasion also his and the rest of the squad’s manager.

John Paul has been an outstanding player for the Saints for many years and now he is trying to guide them to championship glory.

Afterward, he was delighted, not just with Blake’s effort but with all of the squad, and was full of praise for their attitude and calm heads when they needed to be.

“It’s brilliant to be through to the quarter-final. When we came up here we knew a draw was going to do us, but we were never going for the draw,” said John Paul.

“They battled and battled and never gave up in that heat. Just before half-time, Glanmire were six points up at one stage and we got two late points to reduce it to four.

“That kind of settled us down and we were never panicked. At half-time, we just told them to push up and also up the intensity. We knew that if they made one mistake we would hammer it.

“The three early goals from Blake then set us up nicely, but as all good teams do, Glanmire came back at us. They even went a point up late on but we never panicked.

“They are a young team, we had seven U21s starting and more of them on the bench. We are kind of rebuilding at the moment and that was great for them to win a tough, close game.

It was nice to have Blake on the pitch as they look up to him and he helps to bring them along and leads by example.

“We take on Adrigole in the quarter-final now and you never get anything easy from the boys down west. That’s going to be another tough game in a few weeks time but we are where we want to be and are looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead."