Steven Sherlock: People were saying this team was finished, this team isn't finished

St Finbarr’s captain Steven Sherlock feels another monkey is now off their back following a one-point win over Nemo Rangers on Sunday evening.

The Togher outfit edged a thrilling McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC final on a scoreline of 1-14 to 1-13 at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

It’s the club’s first Andy Scannell triumph since 2021. Sherlock chipped in with 0-5 (1 2pt f, 0-1 f), which went a long way to getting his team over the line.

“Incredible, absolutely off the charts,” the sharpshooter said to The Echo after a fantastic game of football.

“We’ve won a couple of times before but this feels like a sweet one. When we won one people were saying we have to win two and when you win two people were saying we have to win three and beat Nemo and all this type of stuff.

“I don’t want to take derby anecdotes. It was all about winning the game. We certainly didn’t do it the easy way. It has always been that way.

“We’re just delighted because I feel like we’re constantly getting monkeys off our back. As I said, if we win one, people are saying we need to win more and this team has underachieved and all that kind of stuff."

St Finbarr’s poor record against Nemo Rangers in finals had been the narrative coming into this one. They hadn’t beaten their southside rivals in four previous deciders. At the fifth attempt, it has come right.

The Barrs have also beaten Nemo for the first time in championship since 2012.

“We didn’t take much notice of that going into the game,” Sherlock said on St Finbarr’s record against Nemo.

“We didn’t get the rub of the green there in two or three finals. We played Nemo in 2017, we lost in a replay. This team has been on the road a long time, about 10 years now, and we feel like we deserve this.

“We never panicked. We were disappointed with our first half performance, but we didn’t panic. That has been key for us.

“It can take a while to come into a game, especially for a good few lads who were playing in their first final. But look, we’re just over the moon. 

"It’s no coincidence that our second half performance was probably better than our first half performance because of our bench and bringing in energy and everything like that.” 

It did look like the game was going to a replay, until sub Cillian Myers-Murray popped up with the winning score for the Barrs. The final whistle brought great scenes from the winning camp.

“We’re just so happy. I actually went straight to Cillian Myers-Murray to congratulate him. We can thank Cillian for what he has done there. 

"This one is special. This one is really, really special. Look, we lost the final in 2022, came back and lost two semi-finals. We probably weren’t good enough.

“People were saying that this team was finished and stuff like that, but this team certainly isn’t finished at all.” Sherlock ended.