Win as a team. Lose as a team.
Kieran Donaghy put it brilliantly at the end of last year when he summed up what this game is all about.
“I am chasing but what I realised this year is there is more to it than that,” he told SportsJOE’s GAA Hour at the time.
“There’s more to it. There’s team-mates, there’s friends,” he added, before describing a wonderful scene in a Lixnaw boozer in the year 2056.
“I will be able to sit down with Gally [Paul Galvin] as two old fellas in a pub in Lixnaw, we’ll be able to sit across and look each other in the eye and says, ‘well, you know, we gave it everything anyway. And what we won we won and what we lost we lost but did we do the jersey proud? Yes we did.”
You’re going to have good days and you’re going to have bad days and, Christ, all of us are more than likely going to end the year disappointed more times than we’ll end it as winners.
So when you cut through all that, when you get past the cruel objectivity of simply winning or losing, what’s left? What did you do it for?
Nothing hits you like a county final defeat. This was a tough one. I love my club. https://t.co/wWeHGN9mvs via @sportsjoedotie #GAA
— Conán Doherty (@ConanDoherty) October 12, 2016
What you’ll find is that you probably did it for friendship. For love. You did it for the club that has shaped your life and you did because of that pride you have deep inside for where you’ve come from.
You did it to represent the parish, the family, the jersey. You did it for the chase, the possibility, the dreams.
And when you look back, all you’ll want to know is that you did it together. As a team. As a club.
It’s hard losing any final. It’s hard losing any game for God’s sake, but nothing would hit you as hard as missing out on All-Ireland glory, at Croke Park, after a 14-month long season.
Rock St. Patrick’s from Tyrone felt that in the junior final at Croke Park on Sunday.
And St. Colmcille’s of Meath felt the exact same pain in the intermediate decider straight afterwards.
They made mistakes, they left themselves with a couple of big mountains to climb but, every single time, they climbed them. They emptied the tank and continued to come back from the brink. As it transpired, they were about six inches away from forcing extra time.
Westport hung on and were crowned champions. Colmcille’s were forced into the worst kind of fate, to politely hang around and watch the victory celebrations and speeches.
But they did it together.
After each of them walked uniformly to a man towards their support to applaud them and thank them, they stood in a line, arms locked, shoulder to shoulder to get through Westport’s coronation together.
They embraced each other, they consoled each other, and they stood tall.
They took the pain of defeat as a team. They left Croke Park, the same way they got there: Together.
And they’ll be all the stronger for it.
