Captain Coughlan heralds 'a great bunch of lads' as Ardscoil Ris win more hurling silverware
DEFENSIVE lynchpins James Coughlan and Eoin Carey jointly-captained Ardscoil Ris to their 2022/23 Dean Ryan Cup title this Wednesday afternoon.
The duo follow in the footsteps of the Limerick city secondary school's two previous Munster Post Primary Schools Junior A Hurling Championship winning sides - 2008/09, jointly-captained by Declan Hannon and Shane Dowling, and 2015/16, jointly-captained by Jerome Boylan and Rory Duff.
"Oh we are very happy," beamed Ballybrown's James Coughlan after Ardscoil Ris added provincial junior honours to the All-Ireland senior honours won in Croke Park last March.
Ardscoil Ris were 3-10 to 0-10 ahead after just one minute of the second half but then saw that lead reduced down to a single point with 90-seconds to play.
"We were in a very good position when nine points up - that's a dream but while we didn't hold onto that we got there in the finish and won. When their goal went in half way though the second half we just knew we had to hold-out, which we did with a strong finish," recalled the full back.
"It's a very good win and they are a great bunch of lads - they training very hard all year and now we finally have something won," said Coughlan of his team-mates.
He also had words of praise for teachers Niall Crowe and Fergal Lyons, who manage the team with assistance from Paul Browne, Alan Neville and David Foley.
"It's a phenomenal management and it's been a long year we have put down. We started out before our Junior Cert last year when we had trials with loads of people there and they have brought us all the way through," said the winning captain.
Manager Niall Crowe echoed the words of his captain.
"We started with this group last April and we felt we had a good group. We did a little bit during the Summer because we felt that maybe if we could be a bit more organised than teams that we would reap the benefits of it and possibly we did. We knew coming down here that there would be nothing in this game," explained Crowe.
"Absolutely thrilled. It was a very good game - it's a serious standard of hurling and everyone saw that today because it was a pleasure to be here," he said after a final that returned 46 scores with just two points of a winning margin in the end for Ardscoil Ris; 3-19 to 1-23.
"The goal just after half time gave us a platform for the second half. We let in an unfortunate goal but we ground it out for a finish. We were eight points up when their goal went in and then it was back to five and then four. We knew with the quality of player that Thurles have, that this would be tight. We just kept saying alongside the sideline that even though we were playing against the wind that we had to keep scoring because we weren't going to see it out with what we had on the scoreboard going into the last 10-minutes," he recalled.
"We had lost the last two finals that we had been in and no one wants to lose three finals in a row. Thurles are the dominant team that U14, U15 and won this Dean Ryan in 2018, '19 - it means more when you beat a team like Thurles, who are a great hurling school," said Crowe.