By Shaun Casey

MICÉAL Rooney’s contribution to Kilcoo’s All-Ireland success will be forever remembered around the mountains of county Down and further afield. His ‘Hand of God’ interception turned out to be a massive moment for the Magpies as the game looked to be slipping out of their grasp.

A poor first-half showing saw Mickey Moran’s men trailing 0-9 to 0-2 at the beginning of the second half and Kilmacud Crokes could have put the game to bed. Midfielder Craig Dias powered through the heart of the Kilcoo defence and after slipping a quick one-two, was fingertips away from slamming home a goal that would have flattened Kilcoo’s hopes.

The “fear of losing” forced Micéal Rooney to clip the ball just wide of the post after an initial block, and offered his side a huge lifeline. But the Kilcoo half-back didn’t realise how big of a play he had just been involved in.

“Everyone’s been asking me what I was thinking, I just felt like ‘get to the line and then hopefully the player will make a mistake’. I got a wee bit of a touch on it before he did, and I knew to just get the ball out because if that goal went in it was probably game over for us. I think more the fear of losing in that situation, your body does magical things.

“We got ourselves out of jail, I was thinking to myself that I made amends for that shot in the first half that I took. We knew if that goal went in it was probably lights out. They would probably have seen it out a wee bit better. Till the day I die I’ll never know how I got to it, but I’m happy that my hand got to it.”

Croke Park was awash with black and white after Jerome Johnston nailed the final kick of the day, with his goal ensuring there was no way back for the Dublin champions after extra-time.

As expected, Kilcoo have enjoyed the couple of days since their homecoming on Saturday night and it wasn’t long until they had the ‘Monday club’ trending on Twitter.

“You have wee lads coming up to you, coming up for pictures and looking you to sign stuff and it’s mental. I just can’t believe it. I still can’t believe I’m sitting here, and I can say that I’m an All-Ireland champion.

“It’s some feeling. Every time I think about it there’s goose bumps on the back of my neck and I just can’t believe we can say that we’re All-Ireland champions. It’s been an incredible few days. I’m so happy for everyone, not just the players and Mickey, but the supporters, they’ve been with us through thick and thin and they deserve it as much as we do.

“If you could bottle that emotion up, you’d sell it for millions. It was incredible. I was standing there, I was hardly fit to stand, and my brother Chrissy was there. Jerome scored the goal and we looked at each other and then the final whistle blew and the two of us just busted into tears and were hugging each other. It was incredible.

“It’s just the typical way to win it for us, we never do anything easy and if somebody was to say you’re going to win the match like that, I would nearly believe them because that’s just the way we are. We always do it the worst way possible but the best way as well. It was incredible, an unbelievable feeling.”

Mickey Moran’s name will be forever sketched into the history of the Kilcoo club. The former Sleacht Néill boss earned his first ever All-Ireland title and deservingly so. Rooney couldn’t be any more complimentary of what Moran has helped them achieve.

“What else can we say about Mickey? I think everybody has said everything about him. He’s a gentleman. He didn’t want any of the limelight on Saturday. It’s his first All-Ireland win as a manger, I was just delighted for him.

“Seeing that emotion as well from him, it was great whenever the lads called him up to lift the cup, he’s a very humble man. He doesn’t want the limelight, he just goes in his own wee way, and he’s just fitted into our club like a glove. I just love him; I’ll love him to the day I die.

“This year I’ve been travelling back and forth from Liverpool, and they’ve (the management) been very understanding.

“ It can be very lonely sometimes when you’re in airports by yourself. They were very good that way looking after me, they knew it could be tough and they would always have been on the phone and texting you, making sure you still felt included.”

Things didn’t look good at the half time break on Saturday evening. But a few choice words in the changing room as well as the inspiring support from the stands helped Kilcoo get to grips in the second period.

“I just think it’s the way we’re brought up in Kilcoo, we’re a bit of a different breed.

“A few things be said between people, but it never means nothing, everyone knows it’s for the good of the team.

“We just knew ourselves we didn’t do ourselves justice. Walking in at half time I glanced up and I saw a few of our supporters and they were still cheering for us.

“That’s what it’s all about, they cheered us on, and they got us through it. We knew we couldn’t let them down on the biggest day of all.”

Rooney was an unused substitute the last time the Down kingpins visited Croke Park, losing to Corofin 1-12 to 0-7 also after extra-time in the 2020 final.

The hurt of leaving Jones’ Road two years ago helped inspire what the fans witnessed on Saturday evening.

There was never any doubt that Kilcoo would eventually climb the steps of the Hogan Stand.

“I’m not saying we overlooked anybody in Down or Ulster or anything, but we knew if we could get through Down, which is a fierce competition to win, we’d give Ulster a crack.

“In Down, I don’t think we won many of our matches by more than a couple of points and that always sticks to you. The Down Championship’s very, very competitive and there’s a lot of clubs now will probably look at us winning this and go ‘we were only a couple of points off Kilcoo, we’re not that far away.’

“When you win Ulster, it’s two games and it’s two steps on that journey to win (the All-Ireland). We always talked about that, we knew we were good enough. We knew we had the players and we’re just so lucky that it all fell into place this year.

“We had a good bit of hurt over the past few years. In 2018, my first ever (county) final playing, Burren beat us. That was a very, very tough day for our club. I think we were going for seven in-a-row, and it was tough. But days like that drive you on.

“Then the Corofin match, again, it was very tough as a club. We believed we were good enough to win that day, but Corofin were just on a different level. They had seen out extra-time a wee bit better than us and that hurt from them two games I would say have really drove us on.

“You don’t want to feel like that and we’re so lucky we woke up this morning with smiles on our faces. I think I slept with a smile all through the night.”