By Stephen Barry
With his duties as Ireland manager complete following a classic shinty-hurling international, Eamon O’Shea was glued to his phone in the tunnel of SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
His son, Dónal, was lining out for Cuala in the Dublin SHC final and O’Shea was tuning in to catch the last 25 minutes.
The results didn’t go their way at either venue, but the Tipperary-native was proud of the spirit shown by his Irish squad in a 4-12 to 2-17 defeat.
“While I’m disappointed, the effort was heroic from the players,” he said. “We trained twice. That’s about the time we had players together. We tried really quickly to make a team.
“What I’m happy with is that we had a spirit in us. Because I don’t think we would have got that close if we didn’t have a spirit in us. We just lost out in the end by a point.
“I’m disappointed with the result, but the game was tremendous. The engagement with the game was tremendous from our players. And their players. You have to give credit to the opposition when they win a game by a point.”