Despite earning the plaudits for his man-of-the-match display in the Leinster Minor Final Longford forward Robbie Smyth said it was very much a real team effort. Speaking to the Leader after the game the modest youngster was happy to accept his award on behalf of the team.

By Deniese O'Flaherty

He said, "It is a team performance at the end of the day. Without the players that were starting on the team and the other lads that were on the panel, we wouldn't be here today. It was a team performance and it just fell right for me today. Lucky I got it (the award)."

Although Offaly started the game brightly, Longford kept with their opponents and went in at the break just trailing by a point. Smyth admitted that Longford knew if they were in the game at half-time they were capable of a big performance in the second half.

"Ciaran (Fox) has been saying it all week that if we were in the game at half-time we could take them in the second half and lucky enough that's the way it panned out today," said Smyth.

It's been a long, hard road to Croke Park for Longford after having to go through the backdoor after losing to Offaly in the first round of the championship. Smyth believes those extra games helped Longford grow in confidence.

"We knew coming up here that against Offaly in Tullamore we couldn't have been that bad. Then we started getting a few wins under our belt, got more and more confident and we knew that if we got the rub of the green we could spring a surprise. We did, thank God," he said.

The Northern Gaels clubman was delighted to represent his club and parish with pride in Croke Park. He is hoping that more people from Abbeylara can follow in his footsteps.

He said, "It is brilliant. The last time they won it there was only one Abbeylara man on the team as well, Shane Smith. Lucky enough I'm the next man so hopefully we can have another one next year or the year after."

Copyright Longford Leader