Kiladangan are the Tipperary Senior Hurling Champions for 2020 and for the very first time in the club’s history.
They just about saw off the challenge of Loughmore/Castleiney in a thrilling and hard-fought match in Semple Stadium this afternoon.
Three goals in quick succession for Loughmore in the first half made it look as though the 2013 winners were going to be too strong for their opponents.
However, Kiladangan came back with gusto and the two sides were level at fulltime 3-14 to 23 points.
21 minutes of extra time followed and proved just as heart-stopping as the first 60.
With less than a minute to go, Loughmore scored a point from a 65 and it looked like they would come away with the win but a shock goal from Kiladangan’s Bryan McLoughney sealed the historic win for them in the last second.
The final score in Semple was Kiladangan 1-28 to Loughmore’s 3-20.
Speaking to Tipp FM’s Stephen Gleeson after the game, Kiladangan goalkeeper, Barry Hogan struggled to find the words to describe what the win means:
“It’s just unbelievable. Just… I can’t find the words for the final whistle there, you know.
“When you finally have it after we’ve been trying for so long and it comes so late – we thought we had it lost three or four times but we just stayed at it and stayed at it.
“When that final whistle blowes you just don’t know where to run! You run anywhere and just meet the first person you and see and just… madness. Unbelievable.
“To a man here today, everyone, the whole panel, the subs, everyone, they were absolutely outstanding.”
His teammate, Alan Flynn said it was probably one of the best county finals in years:
“I can’t believe it! We’ve been trying so hard for so long and to be fair, the club are doing the right things. It’s just when you come up against someone like Loughmore, you’re going to be up against it.
“We knew that coming in here and, to be fair to the boys, I thought it was gone. I thought it was gone.
” Then Joe won a great ball, turned and gave it to Bryan McLoughney. Bryan came off the bench and scored 1-2. That tells you how he’s developed in a year. It’s amazing. Just the experience and the maturity over that year.
“Adding some new lads to the team is after bringing us on leaps and bounds and just thank God, we’re after turning a corner here to bring a county title back to Kiladangan!
GOOOOOOAL!! Bryan McLoughney secures county title for @KildanganGAA with an exceptional goal! pic.twitter.com/ZorNyNPpJE
— The GAA (@officialgaa) September 20, 2020
Listen back to the commentary of Tipperary Senior Hurling Final here:
