Ryan left gutted but refuses to play the blame game

GAELIC GAMES:THE SMILES were rueful, the body language almost brotherly as Jason Ryan and Pat Gilroy bumped into each other at the door of the press conference room. "I'm sick looking at ye," said Ryan, as they shook hands. Gilroy smiled, half-apologetically. What else could he do?

For Ryan, there was little comfort in giving the Dubs their fill of it. All he was left with were regrets and sadness and the ache of not being able to jump the hurdle. “Gutted,” was his verdict. “Sick of losing to Dublin.”

Even the fact that the margin was nothing like it had been in 2008 gave him no succour. “Same end result, simple as that. No matter how much is in it, it’s black and white and we lost the game. That’s why the guys are gutted.”

It wasn’t hard in the aftermath to pick out where the game turned. The own goal on 51 minutes that came about when Anthony Masterson punched a high ball off full back Graham Molloy put Dublin back into a lead they didn’t relinquish. For Ryan though, it was calamitous without being final. What killed them off was the fact that Dublin got the next two scores.

“Probably the point that came afterwards was what did the damage. Dublin have a habit of doing this – instead of getting just the score, they get the next point and then the next point afterwards. That’s the killer. The goal hits you and then when you’re down you get a kick in the gonads with the next point.

“These things happen. Nobody was at fault. You could say the same thing about James McCarthy’s goal, that it was a terrible goal to concede when you have a wing back making his way up the field and being able to rocket it into the back of the net. You can’t blame the goalkeeper, there’s no one person at fault. You can’t lay the blame at anybody’s door.”

Masterson was in tears as Dublin went up to lift the cup and Ryan could be seen trying to cajole rather than console his goalkeeper. No harm in a few tears, he reckons. It isn’t the fall, it’s the getting back up.

“That guy lives for football. If it was Stephen Cluxton and it was his second Leinster final and he conceded two goals and took it very personally, maybe he’d be equally as upset. He’s an emotional guy and he just showed his emotions. I think fair dues to him for being so open about it rather than maybe hiding away in a corner and doing it.”

Irritated by the fact that a goodly portion of his side have a full round of club hurling championship matches between now and the qualifier, Ryan was certain all the same that his players will have their engines running in a fortnight’s time. “They will be right. I don’t even need to think about that. In two weeks’ time, they will play better than that. They will be flying. No doubt about it.”