Kilmacabea manager full of praise for James McCarthy's role in county final success

Kilmacabea manager Donie O’Donovan has hailed former Castlehaven county-winning boss James McCarthy for helping his side over the line this season.

The West Cork outfit won the McCarthy Insurance Group County JAFC title after defeating Donoughmore in the final on Sunday at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The Leap-based outfit turned around a two-point deficit at half-time to win on a scoreline of 1-14 to 1-7.

The experience did play a big factor especially in the last quarter with the majority of the Kilmacabea players involved in the county final loss to Dromtarriffe in 2018.

“We are delighted, absolutely ecstatic,” O’Donovan said post-match.

“I know the team has changed a bit from our final loss seven years ago, but we had James McCarthy from Castlehaven involved with us for the last three months and without him we would not be county champions now.

“We had loads of other people involved in the club who have helped us over the line, but it was James who was the difference.

“We can go off into the sunset and let someone else take over now. It was just all about today and lifting that cup. I didn’t even think about anything else after that.

“We were looking for this for a long time. No matter how much you try to hide it, you suffer slip-ups along the way and it’s so hard to get back and even win the West Cork title.

“To come back and go all the way there today, it's just special and to do it at Páirc Uí Chaoimh makes it just that extra special.” 

Kilmacabea’s neighbours down in Carbery have all enjoyed some sort of success over the years, it’s now Kilmacabea’s time to celebrate. It’s their first county title since winning the Junior B in 1994.

“Look, West Cork is a bare pit in a lot of ways. We all want to get on top of each other. But the well wishes from all our neighbours all around us has been brilliant. I mentioned Castlehaven earlier, they’re right next door to us.

“They’re the standard bearers of Cork football. We’re in the shadows of them.

“The well wishes we got from them in the build up to this was fantastic. Down in West Cork is really what we would call the heartbeat of Cork football.” 

Kilmacabea never panicked at any stage in the decider when they could have easily done so. That experience and bench press proved all so important.

“We were very nervous. I could tell that coming in on the bus and even early in the game. We felt turnovers kind of gave Donoughmore scores.

“Now they had loads of energy and they gave their crowd energy and stuff like that. We just got hold of the ball a bit better and closed down maybe a couple of their players where we were in trouble.

“Once again, the bench worked. Ray Shanahan our goal scorer, he went rallying for the West Cork final. We were fighting to get him back involved because we knew we needed him. He made a huge difference. 

"The backs as well. They were excellent. It was a collective effort there in the second half.”