McCartan relieved
August 30, 2010
Down manager James McCartan
Down needed Kalum King's fingertips to prevent Rob Kelly from scoring a last-gasp winning goal for Kildare and the Mourne County boss admitted afterwards: "To be honest, my head is still spinning.
"It's just relief. With seven or eight minutes to go, we were six points up. I certainly knew the game wasn't won but you hoped to close it out from there. But typical Kieran McGeeeny and Aidan O'Rourke team, they kept coming and coming.
"I think Hugh Lynch stuck over a couple of wonder scores with the outside of the boot. Then the goal came. Look, we were probably hanging on at the end, to see the ball hit the crossbar, it could have gone anywhere. We were just relieved to see it stay out."
He continued: "I felt we played poorly for the first quarter. We needed Benny's goal to kick-start us. We won the second quarter and I felt we won the third quarter. We were in the process of starting well in the final quarter, but then in the last eight minutes it was all one-way traffic.
"But I still felt like Down teams I played on, we were still a scoring threat. We maybe did sit back a bit but when the ball went up we did create chances. We kept the scoreboard ticking and at the other end, the odd point here and there against the run of play pushed us over the line."
The 1991 and '94 All-Ireland winner admitted Down had got the "rub of the green", particularly when Benny Coulter's controversial first goal was allowed to stand.
"When you are along the line you don't see a lot of the marginal incidents. If the goal was a square ball we will take the bit of luck. We got it. I am not sure. There was a couple of things to be honest I felt it may have been evened up quickly with a couple of soft frees to cancel it out.
"But again I am not trying to downplay it. Obviously, we had the rub of the green with the last free kick, it could have gone anywhere. If you guys decide we got a wee bit of luck, I will always say I would rather be a lucky manager than a good one." Tweet
