WHEN they’re old men hanging over a wire and giving off about how football isn’t like it was in their day, Glen’s crop of January 2024 will hark back to Conor Glass’ performance in Croke Park the day they won the All-Ireland.
Facing right down the barrel of an unbearable prospect of back-to-back final defeats, Glass took matters into his own hands.
Not just with the redemptive act of scoring his goal after seeing his shot at the end of last year’s decider clawed away by Kilmacud ‘keeper Conor Ferris, but in how he clambered over bodies in the air to get at the raw possession.
Three different times in the second half he fell to the ground awkwardly, sorely, uncomfortably. The bangs took the wind from him but he kept getting back up for more.
In an understandable hurry to get back to the party, Glass admits he thought it was gone.
“After they went four points up and we had the black card, I thought we were done and buried. Between the 50th and 60th minute, that ten-minute spell went by like that. There were multiple times I thought the game was done and buried.
“The point Michael Warnock got to bring it back to a one kick game, it was absolutely huge.”
Warnock’s point was another measure of the character that Malachy O’Rourke credited for getting them over the line.
Having had a brilliant season capped by an outstanding semi-final display against Shane Walsh, it was a tough first half for Warnock against the brilliant Ben O’Carroll. But rather than bow, he popped up and took on the shot that lifted Glen’s sagging spirits.
That brought the gap back to three and then Glass crept in goalside and started screaming at Conleth McGuckian for the ball.
McGuckian’s quick free ballooned a bit but it got there. The moment he kicked it, Warnock and Danny Tallon gave him an earful over wasting a point-scoring opportunity. By the time they’d cooled, the umpire had the green flag in his hand.
“It is one of those movements, that you just play on instinct,” says Glass.
“I was free and Conleth was able to find we with the pass, it was a difficult pass to find. We played on instinct, that is what you have got to do on those occasions.”
After last year’s late chance screwed off his heel a bit and gave Ferris the chance to make a save, the Derry midfielder resolved that he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
“A lot,” he said when asked if he’d replayed it much in his head.
“I said to myself if I ever get that occasion again, I’m just going to put my foot through it. If it comes off, it comes off, if it doesn’t, at least I went for it.
“Thankfully it happened today, I was able to get that opportunity again. It is a weird one I found myself on the end of it, compared to last year.”
It was a scrappy Glen performance, one that didn’t look like getting them over the line at any stage of the game, but their goals were both perfectly timed lifts that were badly needed.
Glass admitted the poor shot selection had left their “energy zapped”.
The unquantifiable is in how much last year played a part. Whereas St Brigid’s came across and trained in Croke Park last weekend, Glen didn’t. They’d been there last year and turned the chance down.
They might not have hit their heights but signs of actual panic were few and far between.
“It is a testament to this man, we have all situations covered throughout the last couple of weeks,” he says, leaning himself over towards Malachy O’Rourke on his left.
“We prepare for everything we can control. What we can control is our effort and our work-rate.
“It is different talking to implementing it on the pitch. Cathal [Mulholland] is a key cog in our defence as well. I think he was on [Paul] McGrath, who is a serious player for Brigid’s. Ben O’Carroll was causing us bother.
“We were trusting Dougie to go after him one-on-one so that Bradley could push out on kickouts which was a massive thing on their kickouts. You can talk about it but it is very different...”
And then he’s gone, trying to digest it all and not really caring all that much about the how and more for the why.
The memories of Conor Glass dominating Croke Park in an All-Ireland final will last a lifetime.