Man of the match award was “cherry on top” for Niall Furlong

THE man of the match award was the 'cherry on top” for Tullamore wing forward Niall Furlong after his side completed a three in a row with victory over Ferbane in Sunday's county final at O'Connor Park.

Niall came off the bench in the last two county final victories but this was his first year to start a final and he was delighted to pick up the man of the match award, emulating his brother John, who collected the award after the 2023 victory.

Victory was in doubt up to the closing minutes, particularly when Ferbane hit them with a late goal to go three points up so it was very satisfying to pull it out in the end.

“It's hard to put it into words to be honest. The last few minutes there, we thought we were gone. But the boys step up when you need them most, you see Harry there. They pulled through when we needed the most. It was brilliant.

“We knew they'd have a purple patch anyway, and a goal going in isn't ideal. But you see, we won the next ball, we got the next score, and that was the most important thing. I don't know if they scored a point after they got the goal. We really dug deep after that and Harry got three brilliant scores under a lot of pressure so it was just brilliant,” Niall said.

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Three points down half time after playing against that wind was a decent position to be in. “It was a good position. We knew if we just stayed with the game plan, you know, we'd be there, thereabouts. And we knew in the last few minutes we'd been in that position before. Even last year we'd been in it, Ferbane always pushed us all the way, but we just pulled through. So that was the main thing.”

Niall said they showed a lot character and he played his part. He scored a couple of points and was involved in setting up a number of other scores and that all helped him gain the man of the match award.

“It's the cherry on top, it's not the main thing but you know it's a massive It's a massive pleasure and I was just delighted for myself as well.”

Now Tullamore will turn their attentions to the Leinster Club Championship campaign. “Hopefully we'll kick on and really make a dent in Leinster. We haven't done that in the last couple of years, we'll be trying to make inroads in that. We're hoping to kick on anyway and hopefully we'll see over the next few weeks how we go. We've got a three week break now before going to Westmeath, so we'll be able to celebrate and then concentrate on that.”

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