'I was hitting them on the sweet spot'

What's rare is beautiful. On Saturday night, Westport goalkeeper Paddy O’Malley ended the league final as the game’s joint-leading scorer. The impressive stopper drove over five points in the first half and wore a broad smile when he spoke to The Mayo News after the final whistle.

“Once the first one went over it took off a lot of pressure and I wanted to come up every time. I was hitting them on the sweet-spot and I surprised myself a bit I suppose. After the fourth or fifth one went over I said to myself ‘what’s going on here,’ but it was great and really enjoyable. Shane (Conway) came up to me after the game and said I ended the game as top-scorer which is a bit mad.

“It was a good night out for us. It was a final and whenever you’re in a final you want to win it and play as well as you possibly can. We hadn’t won the league for nearly 50 years so we’re happy tonight. The lads were full of running and they were mighty out there. We can’t wait for championship now. We have Balla away which will be sticky but we’ll have a go at it.”

Nearby, Rory Brickenden was speaking about the Westport management team and the energy in the group.

“Shane (Conway) and Martin (Connolly) are unreal coaches and we just keep working and trying to be better. We’re loving it. We’re a young team with loads of energy and we’re looking forward to the championship getting going and games coming along every two weeks,” he added before describing the moment he scored a late goal on his Mayo inter-county colleague, Castlebar Mitchels goalkeeper Rory Byrne.

“I’d be practising those shots on Rory in training and I just got the ball ran at the goal and shot for the near side and it went in luckily enough,” he concluded.