AUSTIN STACKS BOSS Stephen Stack hailed the words of club veteran William Kirby in helping the new Kerry champions recover from last year’s county final drubbing.
There was huge scenes of celebration yesterday in Fitzgerald Stadium after Stacks finally ended a 20-year wait for county senior championship glory with their replay victory over Mid Kerry.
It was an even more impressive feat after the Tralee club recovered from the 16-point hammering they suffered in last year’s decider against Dr Crokes.
“William Kirby said to me last year, when the two of us were absolutely blind drunk on the counter of Connolly Park inside in our own club park, he banged the counter and said “Stephen we just have to work harder!” and we all felt the same. We were prepared to make the sacrifices this year.
“I’m particularly delighted for William and Darragh Long, both of them will know why. One of them is waiting 19 years and Darragh will know why we’re so delighted he kicked the last score of the game.
“We were in a very difficult place last year but I never, ever lost faith in them. We came together on the 19th of November and thrashed a lot of things down, stripped ourselves down and said we just have to work harder, it’s as simple as that.
“Those fellas deserve everything they got. They’ve been magnificent, a credit to their parents and to the club and I’m so proud of them today.”
RIP
Former Kerry All-Ireland winning defender Stack also paid tribute to club member Trevor Barrett, who sadly passed away this year.
“We’d another great colleague of ours that we lost during the year, Trevor Barrett (died suddenly during the year with brain haemmorage at 29). That was for Trevor today, he died, his brother Paul was on the bench today.
“My dad passed away, our chairman and vice-chairman lost parents, the club had a lot of losses during the year but that was always there behind us. That is for all of those people and all those people who have gone before us.”
Midfield
Stack credited Austin Stacks dominance in the middle third as integral to their improvements from the drawn game.
“We felt the diamond area was going to be absolutely critical today and we made changes and we dominated it again. We felt we’d showed them too much respect in the back-line the last day, fellas had to be a lot more ruthless but disciplined in their defending today.
“Mick Galwey said to me a few weeks ago “make sure that the opposition earns ever score!”. He came down to us and spoke to us and there was a couple of others I’d prefer not to mention.”
Austin Stacks focus now switches to the AIB Munster senior club football championship with a tie against Cork champions Ballincollig on the agenda for November 16th.
“I’m very conscious we’re here in Killarney and that ‘Crokes gave us their pitch (for warm-up),” remarked Stack.
“That’s something we really appreciate. They’ve been magnificent ambassadors for Kerry in the past four years and we have to make sure when we go forward we show due respect to what Crokes have done in the past.
“I’m not saying we’re going to win the game but we have an obligation, as champions of Kerry, to represent the county as well as Crokes did and I hope we do that.”
