Kildare manager reflects on emotional quarter-final played after his father’s passing
Kildare manager Pat Sullivan spoke to the Leinster Leader after his side’s All-Ireland Senior Championship quarter-final defeat to Armagh
It was an emotional day in Armagh for the Kildare ladies team, The Lilies missed out narrowly to the Ulster champions, who were playing on home soil, but it was a game in the end about much more than sport for Kildare after manager Pat Sullivan’s father passed away in the near build-up to their All Ireland Senior Championship quarter-final.
Kildare captain Laoise Lenehan said after the game that the players gave all that they could to repay Sullivan for his presence on the day and that him travelling to the game “showed the type of man and manager that he was.”
Sullivan is a stoic and dignified figure and the emotion pouring from his captain after the game when speaking about him spoke volumes of the bond between the Waterford-native and his players. The Leinster Leader passes our sincerest condolences to Pat and his family at this time.
After speaking extensively on the game itself, Sullivan said: “It's been a really, really tough 24 hours, personally. The loss of my father. But look, I'm probably here today because my Nan said, ‘look, you need to be in Armagh and your father would expect you to be here’. So that's why I'm here.
“I felt very comfortable being here today with this bunch of players because that's the bond that we have built. And I felt in a comfort zone being here with the conditions that are going on and the absolute tragedy of what's happened, but I felt today that it was my duty to be here with what they have given up for me and for me to give that back to them.”
On the field, Kildare had their chances and walk away from this quarter-final with much the same feeling as they did their Leinster decider having perhaps left a major win behind them.
Sullivan said, “We probably coughed up six chances ourselves from the side of 45, with one goal chance straight off the line I think four times. That should have been finished.
“Our own incomplete hand passes up on the Armagh side led to 1-2 coming down this side, and then two kick-outs, punishes where there were two kick-outs to get the goal. I think it was three minutes to go on that clock, and we were in a great place, and to just leave it like that was disappointing because we'd worked so hard, and we were the better team. But when you do that to top-class forwards, that's what they will do to you.
“Down the end of the game, we gave them one chance to get a score, and unfortunately we got punished, and we didn't punish them up there. We could have been six, seven points up ourselves at halftime, very, very easily because we were playing so well, and we dominated everything. The game managed it really, really well from the start.”