{"id":283919,"date":"2026-02-06T12:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/283919\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T12:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:56:10","slug":"we-are-over-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/283919\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We are over the moon’"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCC manager Paul O\u2019Keeffe had a beaming smile after his side booked their place in the Sigerson Cup final.<\/p>\n

The Cork side didn\u2019t play to their best but eked out a 1-11 to 1-8 victory over University of Galway at the Mardyke on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

UCC will be going for a 25th Sigerson Cup title when they take on either Queen\u2019s University Belfast or University of Limerick in Croke Park next Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

That other semi-final encounter is on later on today.<\/p>\n

For O\u2019Keeffe, he\u2019s looking forward to the decider at GAA HQ.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s going to be a fantastic occasion and it’s a massive showcase for Sigerson and Fitzgibbon competitions,\u201d he said post-match.<\/p>\n

\"AA general view of Croke Park. Picture: Michael P Ryan\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a brilliant idea to host the finals in Croke Park and I just can’t wait for it now. I’m a bit shell-shocked after this game, but brilliant, I can’t wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s massive. How many times do you get to play in Croke Park in a final? I’ve never been up there in terms of playing or managing, so it’s going to be a massive occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boys have risen to every occasion so far, so it’ll be a great event. Hopefully we win the match, but yeah, it’ll be phenomenal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll get a good look at our opponents tomorrow night and we’ll do our homework, regroup early next week, and do our video stuff, all the usual, so it’s just a case of keeping lads ticking over for the next week or so and see where we go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t UCC’s best performance of the campaign by any stretch of the imagination against University of Galway, but semi-finals are all about winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cSemi-finals are ugly, it’s just about getting the result,\u201d the St Finbarr\u2019s clubman says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt half-time, we’d have been disappointed being level. We had a few goal chances and we let them back into the game. A lot of turnovers, sloppy stuff, but it was all nerves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to the lads before the game to play the match, not the occasion, and I think the occasion was beginning to get to them.<\/p>\n

\"UCCUCC manager Paul O’Keeffe. Picture: INPHO\/Laszlo Gezo<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the odds that were given before the games this season were crazy stuff. I think we were 4-1 in the last game to win, so I’d like to thank Paddy Power\u2019s for that one! In all seriousness, Sigerson is so tight, any team can beat any other team.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see some ridiculous odds and stuff like that, but it’s all about the desire in the team. We’ll just drive on from here. We are over the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCC manager Paul O\u2019Keeffe had a beaming smile after his side booked their place in the Sigerson Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[76700,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-283919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}