Just imagine it.
You work hard all year and your entire life for one moment, Dean Rock’s hours upon hours upon hours of free taking practice came down to his 76th minute free against Mayo that won Dublin the All-Ireland.
What a moment it must have been for him to walk up the steps of the Hogan Stand to lift the Sam Maguire knowing it was his point that did it for Dublin.
But for the Ballymun man has done this all before, that was his third All-Ireland in a row but he had never seen his girlfriend win the title. That was until last week.
Niamh McEvoy plays for the Dublin team, they’d lost three finals in a row prior to 2017 but she finally reaped the rewards and scored a goal in the process as Dublin beat Mayo 4-11 to 0-11 in Croke Park.
The game had 46,286 at it, a record crowd and Rock got to celebrate the day with McEvoy. A special moment.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZbwtYfjCyK/?hl=en&taken-by=deanorock
The pair were on RTÉ’s Ray D’Arcy show on Saturday night on the back of Rock’s win over St.Bridgid’s in Parnell Park alongside their teammates Paul Flynn and Fiona Hudson who are soon to wed.
They were reflecting on a hectic couple of weeks they have endured but Rock stole the show.
When asked if he had watched his win over Mayo back he answered:
“I’ve watched the game back once, watched that back with my dad. I haven’t watched it since but I’ve watched Niamh’s game back about six times.”
And when McEvoy spoke about her week building up to the final Rock came across as a saint:
“In fairness to him he probably had a bit more time for me than I did when I was celebrating last week, he knew my big match was coming up,” she said.
“He made lots of time for me by about Wednesday, obviously he had a couple of days there where he was MIA.
“He resurfaced on Wednesday and we spent a bit of time together but I didn’t really catch up with Dean until last night.”
You can watch the full interview here.
