Kelly saves day for Sligo Rovers

Sligo Rovers goalkeeper Ciaran Kelly celebrates his side’s victory in the FAI Ford Cup Final last Sunday.

Kelly saves day for cup winners


Reaction
Daniel Carey

PEOPLE have told him it’s the stuff dreams are made of. But for Mayoman Ciaran Kelly, saving four penalties out of four in the penalty shoot-out at the end of the FAI Ford Cup final was beyond his imagination.
“I could never have dreamed that ending to the match,” he told The Mayo News after his heroics helped Sligo Rovers to a dramatic victory over Shamrock Rovers at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday.
“I always have a technique when it comes to penalties. I’ve done well throughout my goalkeeping career with it, so I kept to that. I just went on their techniques. I’m not going to give away my secret!”
Kelly saved spot-kicks from Gary Twigg, Pat Flynn, Chris Turner and Paddy Kavanagh while Sligo’s Eoin Doyle and Gary McCabe netted in the shootout.
Recalling Castlebar Celtic’s 2005 Connacht Cup final defeat on penalties to Abbey United, Kelly noted: “It’s not a nice place to be, when you lose a game on penalties, so you feel for Shamrock Rovers. But we were the better side on the day. I think it would have been an injustice if we were beaten.”
When the final whistle went at the end of extra time, the 30-year-old “got off the pitch and just composed myself”. Deciding to “get away from everyone”, he gathered his thoughts. “I just felt confident,” he says, and boy, did he deliver.
Kelly, a native of Annefield, Hollymount, spent Saturday trying to keep out a series of penalties. “I didn’t save any in training!” he says with a laugh. “Then the last penalty was from Gerry Carr, the assistant manager. I saved his and said ‘Right, I’m walking away after that’.”
It was particularly sweet after Sligo’s heartbreaking defeat to Sporting Fingal in last year’s final. But Kelly has performed wonders in penalty shoot-outs before. He once saved five of seven kicks he faced in a cup final while playing for Ballinrobe Town.
That performance earned him a call-up to Mayo’s Oscar Traynor Trophy team and, through Leo Tierney, his first spell at The Showgrounds.
The man nicknamed ‘Tracksuit’ got a text message from Paddy McTigue predicting he would be man of the match, and the Ballinrobe Town man pointed out afterwards that his forecast had come true, even if RTÉ analyst Damien Richardson gave the ‘official’ gong to Joseph Ndo in advance of the penalty shoot-out.
“The game was about 130 minutes long, including the penalty shoot-out, but there were 20 men of the match,” says Kelly. “Even the suspended lads did so much for us – Richie [Ryan], Matthew [Blinkhorn] and even Richard Brush, who has helped me so much as a goalkeeper. I’m just happy to be part of it. It was a great occasion for the club, for the county, and for the west of Ireland.”