McGrath makes light of ‘virgin’ status

Date Published: 24-May-2012

 LAST Sunday was a long time coming for Kieran McGrath. He’s been a constant starter for his club, Corofin, over several years when they were competing in, and winning, County and Connacht championships.

The corner-back also represented the Tribesmen at the minor grade but he has been on the fringes of the Galway senior squad for a couple of seasons; never quite making the breakthrough. until now.

Even Galway manager Alan Mulholland found the funny side of McGrath becoming a senior championship debutant for his county at 27 years of age when he revealed after the convincing defeat of Roscommon that “the lads were slagging Kieran all week as being a 40-year-old virgin!”

McGrath has starred in big club matches where silverware was at stake but that didn’t eradicate the nerves of making his first senior championship start for Galway in Hyde Park.

“I got a lot of text messages and phone calls over the last couple of days and just as they’re coming in you do get a little bit nervous. People would say to you ‘it’s just another game, you’ve been there before’ but I think lining out for your county on your first day at senior level is a nerve wracking experience no matter what age you are. But it’s a great feeling and it’s a feeling that will live long in the memory for me, thank God,” McGrath told Tribune Sport after the game.

McGrath can be entitled to feel pleased with his display. Galway started with two debutants in the full-back line, McGrath and Ballinasloe’s Keith Kelly, alongside experienced captain Finian Hanley, and it would have been identified by the Roscommon management as an area of potential weakness.

Apart from a couple of hairy moments under the high ball, the full-backs were solid – Roscommon’s full-forward line of Donie Shine, Senan Kilbride and Darren McDermott registered just one point between them from play, which speaks volumes.

Remarkably McGrath scored more than the man he was marking for most of the match, McDermott, who failed to score at all, as the tenacious corner-back got in on the scoring act with Galway’s fourteenth point of the day minutes from the final whistle.

A good start to his senior county career? “It’s nice to get out there and play for your county. It’s something I always wanted to do, no different than any other young lad, it just happened it came later in life for me. I was happy with the way today went for me but I’d be happier with the team’s overall performance. I think up front we worked very hard, we took our scores well. There were no individual scores – everybody chipped in and gave the ball to the better man in the better position and we got the scores,” he said.

For more of this interview see this week’s Tribune