Buttevant left to rue missed goal chances: 'A fabulous year, but it doesn't feel like that at the moment'

It wasn’t to be for Buttevant in their AIB Munster Junior Football Championship final clash with Ballymacelliogott at Mallow on Saturday.

The Cork side were well beaten in the end, but manager Joey Hanlon said they can look back on parts of the season with a lot of positivity.

“It was a fabulous year, but to be honest it doesn't feel like that at the moment,” said Hanlon.

“It feels like we're out of the championship, because that's exactly what we are now. You can hear all the celebrations going on in the background, that's where we wanted to be today.

I’m not sure if we underperformed or not, but we met a really good Kerry side, who are a few divisions above us.

“No excuses there, they are a really good side and we missed a couple of chances that you can’t to against a team like them.”

His side got off to a great start and had raised two orange flags in the first three minutes, but Ballymac came back at them and once they scored their goal to go in front they were never behind again.

KILLER BLOW

Hanlon felt that goal was a killer blow and one they never really recovered from.

“It knocked the stuffing out of us because we were the main contributors to it. We lost a simple ball coming out of defence and in fairness to them they punished us for it.

Sometimes it can really go right through a team, when something like that happens. I could see it going through our fellas.

“But in fairness we finished the half in really good style again. We just didn't go at them enough in the first half when we had the wind.”

They started the second half well and had a couple of chances to score goals themselves, before Ballymac got their second, which killed off the game as a contest.

“We were happy enough with our start to the second half, especially against the wind. We had a few goal chances ourselves, but their keeper did well to keep them out.

“But their second goal was a big blow. We had to go man-on-man at that point, and it left a gap, and they got in. Then the third one came soon afterwards.”

Hanlon couldn’t fault the effort of their players and said they have put in everything all season.

“They're a great bunch of fellas and have given us everything all year and obviously winning the Cork championship was huge for us.

“We’re looking forward now to the draws on Tuesday night and no doubt that will give us a bit of a boost. We will go away and enjoy Christmas, and it won’t be long before we are back at it again.”