MARTIN CARNEY: Total honesty can help Westport explore new horizons

At the end of every championship season a litany of memories linger, spanning a range from good to bad.

Obviously, the former is the sole emotion with the winner while every other team in the competition will look back with different degrees of disappointment.

This was Westport’s year. But before I look again at their historic achievement I would like to revisit briefly and mention some of those who fell short of their ambitions, with my focus concentrating on Knockmore and the semi-finalists only.

Ballina Stephenites, beaten finalists, will harbour many regrets in relation to their performance on the big day. Searching for answers to their under-par display will take time.

A team generally young in years and lacking experience at this level can be excused for playing below par and the intense levels the occasion demanded.

Padraig O’Hora was an honourable exception in this regard as he did everything in his power to generate the necessary bite lacking in many of his colleagues.

On another day and competing with a team in tune with the demands of the moment, his equalising goal with 10 minutes remaining would have elicited a different response.

Yet, one point from there to the final whistle for the Stephenites tells its own story.

I had anticipated a greater return from their attack and in many ways, it was the inability to get their forward play functioning at the levels we witnessed earlier in the year that disappointed most.

There is little doubt that they have a promising team; one that will have learned much from the journey and a group that appear poised in the near future to bridge that widening gap since their last title.

In many ways Castlebar Mitchels are a carbon copy; young, energetic and talented but in many respects early on the road to maturity.

Conceding that last minute goal in the semi-final against Westport will remain a source of frustration for some time but armed with the lessons from this year they will be a formidable force next year and for some time to come.

With a large panel at their disposal and four titles to their name in the last decade there is much to draw inspiration from.

Knockmore and Ballintubber this year were mirror images of one another.

The memory of five titles to their names from the last 10 years will remain but to my eye both looked somewhat jaded this summer.

The iconic figures who drove their campaigns for years appeared to struggle more than in the past.

The accumulative effect of endless training sessions, picking up injuries, playing and trying to live up to expectation appeared to have blunted desire, edge and form.

Whether or not these teams have ready-made replacements in place to take on fresh challenges over the next while is a question only time will tell.

But back to the newly crowned champions, Westport. For some time now they have been flirting with the big prize and attempting to bring to a fitting conclusion much of the work that has continued apace for the last decade or more at various levels.

Success, as they say, has many authors and never was this more apparent than with the ‘Port. Nurturing good underage groups took hard work from the nameless and committed and got its reward with a minor and two Under 21 titles in the recent past.

The task, and dare I say success, of making the code attractive to young people cannot be underestimated in a town where other sports are well established.

Having a successful feeder school certainly helped as did the endless work carried out by a dedicated core of teachers over the years.

Reaching a Hogan Cup as finalists in 2018, where they were pipped by Lurgan, was a noteworthy, and largely unheralded, achievement in its own right.

Building incrementally through the intermediate grade towards senior success took time and patience. County winners in the grade at county level in 2009 and 2016 bred a sense of hope and this found fulfilment with an All-Ireland title at this grade in 2017.

But through most of this there was one constant, that being Martin Connolly.

As a teacher in Rice College, coach and manager to various teams over a long time he managed the senior team to football’s Holy Grail for the first time ever.

From what I saw of them the Ballindine native brought advanced levels of fitness, organisation and collective understanding to a group that responded well to his direction.

That collective spirit and sense of togetherness was put to the ultimate test in the final seconds of the semi-final win over Castlebar Mitchels.

Here Shane Scott’s last gasp winning strike was a resounding statement of a team with unwavering morale and unflinching self-belief.

The circumstances of this victory must have cultivated a sense with even the doubters within that winning the title was their destiny.

Connolly’s reaction to the victory was one of relief more than anything.

In his post-match interview on Midwest Radio one could feel the emotion and an awareness of the achievement in every word he expressed.

His humility and generosity in recognising the role his management team played was fulsome. Indeed, one member of the group, Shane Conway, a fellow teaching colleague in Rice College, was singled out for particular praise.

Totemic figures like Lee Keegan and Kevin Keane may have anchored the effort and set the example for others throughout the championship.

When the fact is added that the win came about without the services of Colm Moran and Eoghan McLaughlin, who respectively were ineligible and injured, this makes their achievement more noteworthy.

Yet, it’s back to the grind on Sunday when Moycullen, the Galway champions, visit for the opening round of the Connaught club championship.

A tough afternoon lies ahead.

Backed by six members of the Galway squad that reached this year’s All-Ireland final and with the county final hero Peter Cooke aboard there is a formidable look to their starting 15.

Fortified with a solid defensive firewall, not unlike Westport indeed, expect Moycullen to provide a stern test.

Yet provided the ambition and desire to explore new horizons still burns and if Westport find once more a display of total honesty and graft there is every reason to believe that this hurdle can be cleared.