ARMAGH midfielder Niall Grimley was praying for referee Sean Hurson to blow the final whistle after his shot hit the Galway post in All-Ireland final injury-time.
The Orchard county led by a point when Madden clubman Grimley got on the ball in front of the Galway posts but what he thought would be a “handy score” didn’t go to plan.
The ball rebounded off the upright and the Tribesmen broke in search of an equaliser. But a brilliant block from Joe McElroy denied Paul Conroy and the rest is history.
“I was saying to myself: ‘Right, just tap this over here and that’s a handy score…’,” a smiling Grimley explained.
“It hit the post and I was like: ‘Ah no’. One of the men that I’ve been soldiering with for years, Joe McElroy – you wouldn’t believe the relationship me and Joe have – dug me out of a hole with that block at the end so I have to repay him for that.
“I was shitting myself when it hit the post. I was thinking: ‘Ah no, they’re gonna get another attack!’ I was praying, I was thinking: ‘Sean Hurson, please blow the whistle!’”
Grimley said his thoughts were with his brother Paddy, sister-in-law Ciera and Ciara McElvanna, wife of 2002 All-Ireland winner Kevin, when Hurson finally did blow the long whistle.
He explained that Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney had given him immediate support after the terrible accident that claimed their lives last November.
“He (McGeeney) is nearly superhuman at times,” said Grimley.
“The man is literally Armagh. He is the (italics) man, an incredible man, and for me, everything he has done for me over the years, anything I have ever asked… When I was probably at my lowest point eight and-a-half months ago, he was the man that was one of the first to text me.
“That’s the type of person he is. He is an incredible man and I am just delighted for him. I’m more delighted for him that I am for himself. Does that make sense?
“Geezer, that man, he deserves it all. I feel he deserves more credit than absolutely anyone. He is inspirational.
“I look up to him. He is a hero to me.”
