It’s such an honour to captain this team - Seanán Carr

Only two Donegal Schools have tasted All-Ireland success in the history of schools’ GAA and on Saturday in St Tiernach’s Park, Clones Abbey VS captain Seanán Carr joined Brian Tuohy (De La Salle, Ballyshannon 1980) and Kieran Patton (St Eunan’s, Letterkenny, 1979) to be the third player from the county to lift the Paddy Drummond Cup.

The current Donegal U-20 panel member played a captain’s part in the convincing 1-15 to 0-9 victory over Ashbourne Community School.

AVS captain Seanán Carr is presented with the Paddy Drummond Cup

The final winning margin doesn’t tell the whole story as the Donegal Town school side saw a seven point half-time lead twice cut to four points but the captain along with his younger brother, Turlough, Kevin Muldoon, Callum McCrea and Conor McCahill was a driving force in the win.

It seemed like it might be a walk in the park after the first half dominance, but this rugged Ashbourne side didn’t want to go without a fight, even if at times they might have stepped over the line.

The captain, however, was delighted with the win and especially the stubborn resistance shown by his side when they were challenged in the second half.

“Unbelievable. As I said in the acceptance speech, the belief that the boys had after the Ulster final was unbelievable, that we could go on and win it. Our phrase was, ‘our job is not finished’. We said that after the Ulster final and it drove the standards.

“I’m so  proud of all the boys. It is such an honour to captain this team to their first All-Ireland title. It is just unbelievable.”

It was the perfect start for the winners in the first half when they had the wind at their backs and their scoretaking was out of the top drawer.

“Yeah, yeah. We had the wind in the first half and we really made use of it. I think we were seven points up at half time.

“I suppose when they had the wind in the second half, they had their purple patch and they got four or five points on the trot. We were under the cosh a bit. There was a lot of pressure on us but we ground it out.”

When things were tight in the final five or six minutes Carr came up with a big score to ease his side five ahead, 0-13 to 0-8. That was a big score at the time.

“Yeah, it was. I think they were four behind and I got a score then which broke it up a bit and then Conor (McCahill) got his goal not long after and it really killed them then.”

One of the reasons Abbey struggled to get into the game in the second half was  because they found it hard to get their kick-outs away.

“Kick-outs are massive in the game. When we weren’t winning the kick-outs at the start of the second half they were getting all their scores. Once we did get hands on the ball again we were able to kick on,” said Carr, who had great praise for his defence.

“We’ve unbelievable defenders. That team there (Ashbourne), they had real attackers there and were hard to handle. But our defenders Donal (Gallagher), Leo (McGowan), David (Monaghan), Terence (McGovern), all of them. Caolan (Sweeney) and Callum (McCrea) as well. I hope Callum is okay after that injury. He was unbelievable today and I’m so proud of all of them,” said Carr.