*Kilmurry Ibrickane wing-back, Darragh Sexton. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
Having emerged onto the senior side as part of a new wave in 2016, Darragh Sexton immediately saw Jack Daly success as the standard, a high bar that he is keen to preserve this Sunday when putting their title on the line against Éire Óg.
Between replays in 2016 and ‘19, Sexton will actually be lining out in his seventh county senior final in only six seasons and having lost only one of the previous six, the versatile defender hopes that Kilmurry Ibrickane’s superior final experience will stand to them.
“It’s great to have played in county finals and you’d hope that it helps but at the end of the day, you take each final as it comes. We won’t look to past performances, we’ll look at Éire Óg now and try and analyse them and see how we can win this game. Don’t get me wrong, we love playing county finals and that’s no different this year but Éire Óg will be coming in with just as much momentum as we have so we just have to match that hunger all the way”.
With such a bank of finals under your belt, do you feel like one of the experienced players now? “Well, we had a bonding exercise not so long ago and we were made line up from youngest to oldest and I found myself on the wrong end of that list anyway so that was kind of eye-opening for me. Look, there’s more responsibility when you’re one of the older lads on the team and that’s something I enjoy.
“I suppose when you come in first, you’ve got these stalwarts of the club and you’re looking up to them and don’t want to put a foot wrong. But the longer you’re in the dressing room, the more you learn from these lads really and therefore when the opportunity arises, you’ve got to take on more responsibility and that’s what I’m trying to do at the moment so hopefully it’ll keep going that way”.
Kilmurry Ibrickane’s ability to clamber over whatever fate could throw at them in a potentially treacherous title defence minefield is admirable but now that they have managed to return to the final, Sexton and Co. want to finish the job. “It was a tough year and a tough group. It was called the ‘group of death’ and we kind of set out our stall first to try and win every game in that group. Now we drew one game but came through the group unscathed.
“From the outset, it looked a tough journey, we seemed to pick up a lot of injuries but we’ve made it back to the final and are looking to put back-to-back titles together now. I’d imagine Éire Óg will be favourites after a great win against Breckan’s so it’s all ahead of us now as we look forward to that challenge. I was very impressed with Éire Óg the last day. They seemed a very well-drilled team, everyone knew what their role was and they implemented their gameplan very well against what was a very hotly-tipped St Breckan’s team after that Miltown game. So we know that there’s a massive task ahead of us and it will just come down to which side can grasp the opportunity on Sunday”.
