Austin O’Malley lauded Cuala’s ability to win close games after they edged out Ardee St Mary’s courtesy of Luke Keating’s injury-time free to claim their maiden Leinster club SFC title.

The first-time Dublin champions withstood a second half onslaught from their Louth counterparts to keep the Sean McCabe Cup in the capital for another year.

“We hung on in there, but I just thought our guys showed great courage and composure to stick to our principles and find the play to win it at the end,” the winning manager told the assembled media at Croke Park.

“We’ve been through a lot of tight games. Even the county final (against Kilmacud Crokes) and the Naas game was quite tight so we have learned from that. It's a breakthrough year for us, but I thought we learned a lot in those games and in our reviews, we would be pretty tough on ourselves."

The former Mayo and Wicklow forward added: “We had a lot of tough games under our skin where they have gone to the wire and we have had to hold out or wrestle momentum back so that probably served us well there, a little bit in the DNA at the end.”

Tweet

Most Read Stories