Shea Ryan looking ahead to Leinster Club clash with Cuala after Kildare SFC win

It may have been only seven years since Sarsfields last won the Joe Mallon Motors Kildare SFC but for a club of its stature seven years is a long barren spell and once the final whistle arrived players, management and their many supporters went straight into celebration mode, and why not.

Any day you can win a senior county final, or indeed any county final, is a good day for all involved with any club and you can be assured that the celebrations in Newbridge, at the bottom of the town anyway, will be extensive.

Players, of course, will be at the heart of those celebrations for a couple of days anyway but then, come mid-week or so, thoughts will turn to the next item on the agenda and a date with Dublin champions, Cuala, who defeated Tullamore by a late two-pointer from former Dublin star Con O’Callaghan.

On Sunday week, Sarsfields will travel to Parnell Park in Dublin to take on the might of The Dubs in the AIB Leinster Club Senior Football Championship semi-final, it is a competition that Sarsfields have not really excelled in as they bid to become only the third club in the county to win that prestigious competition joining Moorefield (2) and Raheens who were the first club to win it.

Shea Ryan, man of the match on Sunday against Maynooth was really looking forward to the celebrations that were about to fold soon after the presentation of the Dermot Burke Cup to his captain, Barry Coffey.

Shea, not unsurprisingly, was in buoyant form after the win over Maynooth, “absolutely delighted” was the talented player’s initial response, adding “it has been a long time, seven years is too long for our club.

“We knew Maynooth were going to be very strong as they showed when defeating both Athy and Naas, we knew they would be very physical along with their running game and we prepared for that today; we were a little bit off in the first half, not really at the pitch of it but we felt we had a lot of possession in that first half we just did not convert it on to the score board, we were disappointed to be only level at the break but knew we had a lot left in the tank which we showed in the second half.”

Asked on his own personal performance Shea said “happy enough, I have played in a lot of finals through the years, the worst I played was probably in 2021 against Naas but happy with today, the main thing is that we got on the right side of the result.”

Looking forward to the Leinster Club Shea said “we will enjoy tonight and tomorrow but we are delighted to be training in November, going down to the second pitch in Sarsfields and while we haven’t put our best foot forward the last few times we played in Leinster hopefully we can go on now and build on the momentum from today’s win.”