Mark Mullins full of praise for Na Piarsaigh's spirit to move into quarter-finals

Ahead of their Co-op Superstores SAHC clash with Fermoy at Lisgoold not too many would have fancied Na Piarsaigh’s chances of reaching the quarter-finals.

Having lost to Killeagh and Carrigtwohill the talk, outside of the club, was will they survive at this level and were they possibly going to be involved in a relegation battle?

But Na Piarsaigh is a proud club and they took on the challenge, knowing that if Carrigtwohill beat Killeagh (which they did) and they got the better of Fermoy by three points they would go through.

Ten minutes in and it looked like they were going to do that in style as they led by 0-6 to no score. Ross O’Sullivan and Padraig Guest were causing Fermoy all sorts of problems. But credit to Fermoy, they settled into the game and after 30 minutes they were back on level terms.

Two second-half goals from the aforementioned due secured the win for Na Piarsaigh, by 2-14 to 0-17, to see them secure a spot in the quarter-finals. The celebrations at the end showed what it meant to all involved and none more so than manager Mark Mullins.

DUG DEEP

He was quick to praise his side and the spirit they showed over the 60-plus minutes.

“We showed unbelievable spirit tonight,” said Mullins, “people were writing us off all week, and we dug deep and Piarsaigh’s as a club we always fight and we fought to the bitter there and it showed.

“We lost four players, we lost more players the last day but everybody that started and came on fought to the end. Look we knew what we had to do and we knew what we wanted to do and we got there in the end.

“We got a great start to be fair to the lads and it set us on our way, and we know what that’s like as it happened to us two weeks ago against Carrigtwohill.

“So look, we knew we had to get a great start tonight and we did and built on that.”

They knew Fermoy would came back at them, but the two second-half goals were the difference and killer blows, with one coming early in the second half as Fermoy started to get on top.

"We look at our stats all year and when we get goals we're in the game and we fight. We got the goals, we had two good guys in there to get the, they are goal hungry.

“It’s a great boost for the club to get through to the quarter-finals and get one step forward, that’s what we wanted at the start of the year, to at least reach that stage and we can look forward to it now.

Anything can happen now and the most important thing is we are there to see what can happen. The lads deserve massive credit for the effort they put in to get us there.

“We will have to check on the injuries and see how they all are, but we can look forward to training for the next few weeks and no doubt it will be another battle the next day out."