“He probably feels himself that he should be getting more game-time for the seniors.” – Lavin’s fairytale

Niall McIntyre

Tony Lavin had not played for the Strokestown seniors all year.

Club players all over the country will relate to the story of the man who was too good for his club’s junior team, but wasn’t quite good enough for the seniors. There you are, you’re caught between two stools.

In situations like that, the seconds will often hold onto their key men until the end of the road. And it wasn’t until two weeks ago, when Strokestown were knocked out of the junior championship, that a door opened for Tony Lavin.

That was a door to the Strokestown senior team but with only one game left, a Roscommon senior football final, it was never going to be straight-forward.

And it was even less so, as their joint-captain David Neary told us on The GAA Hour’s Monday club, when Lavin pulled his right quad only a couple of weeks ago.

As a result, over the last few weeks, Lavin had to get used to kicking off his weaker left foot but this fairytale story was complete on Sunday, when Lavin came on to score the winning point, off his left foot, with the last kick of the Roscommon senior football final.

“Look, Tony has been playing very well for the juniors this year,” Neary told us.

“He probably feels himself that he should be getting more game-time for the seniors. But he had a great year for the juniors.

The juniors lost their semi-final there two weeks ago and Tony actually played the game with a torn right quad.

“So he got a good bit of practice in with his left foot that day, he was just kicking with his left that day.”

What makes it even more amazing is that, seconds earlier, it was Lavin’s mistake that led to the concession of a free which Donie Smith nailed from 50 yards. Everyone in Hyde Park was thinking extra-time at that stage but Lavin, as you’ll see in the clip below, had other ideas.

So, when he got it onto his left yesterday,” says Neary, “he had got a good bit of practice in so that he was going to kick it over the bar.”

And that was exactly what he did.

Tony Lavin scores the dramatic injury time winner for Strokestown. #RosGAA pic.twitter.com/qWeJCUKRQE

— Roscommon GAA (@RoscommonGAA) October 23, 2022

There was great excitement in Anthony Beirne’s bar in Strokestown on Monday and, from the beer garden, one of the team’s key men Colin Compton perfectly summed up what it meant to this team to finally get over the line.

“I’m playing since 2009, and to be honest, we’ve never been close.

“In 2012, we won the minor and under-21 division one titles, and from that, everyone just expected us to rock up and win division one titles. But it’s been a learning curve the whole way through.

“Sometimes things have gone against us, injuries, form, whatever else. But this year, we had the right management team, we had a clean bill of health and the stars just aligned. Thankfully, we grasped it and we took it and there was a happy ending to it.

“There’s a lot of county medals floating around Strokestownm,” he added.

“And you kind of felt that, until you got one, those guys were up on a pedestal, the guys that won it in ’92 & 2002.

“They all got a county medal and to this day, they’re so proud of it.

And you know, as a player, playing for Strokestown, you always just wanted one, just to say you had it, just to join the club, and just to be able to meet those guys last night, to shake their hands and to be welcomed into the club, that was so special.”