Darren O'Shea "extremely proud" of players after All-Ireland semi-final defeat

“A wonderful year, we are nearly 12 full months on the go this weekend, one step too far today. Arva are a very efficient side, by our count they only missed two and dropped one short today. They were very efficient in front of the goals,” the words of Darren O'Shea, right, after his side's defeat to Arva in the All-Ireland Club Junior semi-final.

O'Shea added, “Their running game was very strong and we are young ourselves. We need a bit of hardness in the ground to exploit our strengths and we didn’t have that, we lost our footing a good bit. But they are a bit further down the road than us in terms of conditioning and stuff like that and it showed there with 10 minutes to go.”

Milltown did have a glimmer of hope around 10 minutes into the second half when Arva 'keeper Cian O'Hara spilled the ball over his own line.

“We got back to four points there early in the second half and then had five minutes of possession and had two chances. Even if we could have bridged that gap to three or two, who knows, maybe a bit of doubt might have kicked in. But they kept us out and punished us when we opened up at the back,” O'Shea said.

His side would fail to capitalise on the lifeline handed to them by their opponents. Their inability to do so would ultimately spell the end of this game as Arva took back control of this game.

The Milltown was queried on his side only scoring one more point after raising the green flag.
"That tells its own story, we had plenty of ball up there, creating chances is not normally a problem for us but we couldn’t get the shots off either through footing or the pressure they put on the kicks. They turned us over then and pushed us back.”

The Milltown manager was quick to praise the opposition too, who were ruthless in front of the posts on the day.

“Their core is very strong and no.14 (Kevin Bouchier) in particular I thought was a very good footballer,” he said.

The final word had to be given to what an incredible year it has been for Darren O'Shea and Milltown. A Dowling Cup win, Division 4 title, County Junior Champions and Leinster Junior Champions, all contained within a hectic year for the parish.

O'Shea concluded, “When you get this far you always want more. It’s been a long 12 months and you have listed out what we have done there and we are extremely proud of our players and the village for supporting us.”