Regan and Hanley thrilled by Ballaghaderreen win

UP WITH IT Ballagh’s Barry Regan lifts the Moclair Cup.?Pic: Sportsfile

As happy as Barry


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Daniel Carey

THE bravest move in McHale Park, Castlebar last Sunday was surely Barry Regan’s decision to stand on a table over the tunnel afterwards. With football boots still on, the Moclair Cup over his head and the adrenaline still pumping, he kept it together.
“It’s like heaven,” the 29-year-old told The Mayo News in the tunnel below afterwards. “I’m playing senior football ten or 12 years now, and there was a lot at stake today. I don’t normally get nervous, [but] I was very nervous today, because I realised everything today was all or nothing.
“There was no tomorrows, there was no next years. We don’t know what anyone’s predicament will be next year. So it was all about today, and that brings its own pressure. Thank God we dealt with it.
“I hope it’s given the people of Ballaghaderreen a good lift … I’m very proud to be from Ballaghaderreen. I wouldn’t want to be from anywhere else in the world.”
“The town is white,” adds Andy Hanley, just off the phone with his Australia-based brother Pearce, who followed the game on Facebook and Twitter. “To get to a county final nowadays, it takes such an effort. It’s a 34- or 35-man push … we were running up mountains in January. We’ve put in the hard yards, and we knew it would stand to us in the last 10 or 15 minutes today.”
Hanley is due to depart for a new life in the US shortly, but with Sligo champions Curry around the corner, he says: “I might look to extend my stay now”.
“You just have to put your life on hold for the whole year, and that’s what we did,” said Regan. “Our aim all year was to be the hardest-working team in Mayo. Because the way we saw it, Ballintubber have been the hardest-working team in Mayo … For us to come and beat them today, it’s an ideal scenario … because you don’t want to get a ‘handy’ county title. You want to beat the best, and we played the best today, and we beat them.”