Cillian returns to kick the deciding score

He stood in the middle of Islandeady still not completely certain how Ballintubber had pulled off the great escape against Kilmeena but the smile across Cillian O'Connor's face indicated the happiness bubbling inside. He had just played his first championship game of the year and helped his side into the quarter-finals after results and scorelines fell in their favour.

O'Connnor had helped the Abbeysiders defeat Kilmeena by two points and when Breaffy recorded a seven-point win over Aghamore in the other group game the men in red were through to the last eight.

“It was a strange situation at the end,” he explained after the final whistle. “Initial thoughts are we're delighted to have won the game. Kilmeena gave us a really tough battle. There were loads that we did very badly in the second half and that's really annoying.

“We hadn't been in a situation before where we were relying on another result, so all week it was hard to fully get the head around. We were going through different ways of approaching it and we just said, we couldn't look beyond winning our own game.

“We tried to break it down into two halves. We wanted to be ahead at half time and then see where we were. That's what occurred but our focus waned in the second half and we made some poor errors. All we could do was win the game and just hope things go right on the other side,” the inter-county star stated.

His team had raced into a big lead early in the game and it seemed as if they would continue to pull away from Kilmeena but that's not what occurred.

“The way we raced into that seven-point lead probably spooked us a small bit because we started playing keep-ball and went away from what we had been doing well. We invited them on and went in just eight-two up at half time when it could have been a few points better for us.”

Was he aware of the score in the Breaffy/Aghamore game as the second half played out.

“I looked over at the sideline a few times and there was no reaction. Knowing how diligent Tom (Muldrrig) is, I know he wanted us to stay focused on the job in hand and didn't want lads thinking about anything else.”

O'Connor had been suspended for teh opening two rounds of the championship but bounced onto the pitch for the clash with Kilmeena.

“I was itching to get playing. I've really enjoyed training for the past six or eight weeks. They're a great bunch of lads and to play with them today after being so helpless the last two big weekends, you just feel kind of guilty, and you just want to pull your weight and contribute in any way possible,” he added.