As soon as they final whistle sounded in Sunday’s senior decider, it was clear how much three-in-a-row meant to Middletown.
Chants of ‘six in seven’ circled the huddle as the hooped jersey’s raised the Jimmy Carlisle Cup to the sky.
Odhran Curry has been a key figure for the Middletown men throughout their most recent period of hurling dominance in Armagh.
Their midfielder described the “relief” of hearing the final whistle after a pulsating hour of hurling. “It’s wild. Once it goes it’s a relief.
It was hot and heavy for a lot of the game. Keady always brought it to us, but we probably done ourselves more harm in the first half, our own mistakes, gave away the penalty”.
Half Time turnaround
“But we knew when we went in at half time, we settled, we regrouped and we knew if we just kept going to our game plan, going to the well, that it would come through eventually.
That’s what happened in the second half, we just drove on. Even when they got their second goal we went up and we went again.
In terms of three in a row. It’s massive, it’s massive for the club. That’s the second in the last seven years.
It was hard to do the first time, it was definitely as hard the second time. But with the group of players here, having put in the effort, it shows today”.
Keady brought a physical element to the game that Middletown were forced to match. Curry paid tribute to match referee Gerard Fox for letting “the game flow”.
“I thought the referee done brilliant. Everyone was really sceptical of him coming in. He had never done an Armagh game before but fair play to him he was on point and juts let the game flow”.
Middletown’s final win was much easier than Sunday’s as they were forced to do it “the hard way”.
“There’s games that play in your favour and there’s games where you have to do it the hard way and we definitely done it the hard way. We had faith throughout the game that if we just kept to our game plan, it was eventually come.
We keep on going, we keep on going and it’ll eventually come and that happened. It happened in the second half so we’re happy enough”.
Six in seven
Curry also complimented his teammates confidence in going for the famed three-in-a-row.
“Down through the years when Middletown won one or won two, they were nearly afraid to talk about three in a row. But this group of players, we’re not afraid to talk about it. And we knew it’s there for the taking so let’s just go get it.
It was a lot of hard work, it wasn’t as if we just, we’re going to show up and take it for granted. It was a lot of hard work and it showed on the day”.
