McGarry delighted to get the monkey off the back

The 29 year-old who transferred from Lisbellaw to Portaferry in 2007 has played in five provincial finals but never been on the winning side, until Sunday that is. It is the first time in the club’s history they have been crowned Ulster champions and McGarry admits they are in dreamland.

“It’s a wee bit surreal to be honest,” he said. “We’re the first team from the club to have done it, so it’s a real monkey off our back. Now, all three senior clubs in Down have won Ulster, so it’s a great achievement. I’m looking at the pictures today (Monday) and it’s great to see so many people, so happy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many grown men cry. I’m not usually an emotional person myself but it definitely was emotional yesterday,” admits Kevin.

Portaferry were huge underdogs going into the decider making the victory all the sweeter for the Mourne men: “It was just pure relief! Even though we were six or seven points up we kept tackling and when the final whistle went it was job done, it’s just fantastic. We’ve been written off all year and in every interview I’ve done previously, I’ve said we’re just there to make up the numbers. I don’t think anybody will believe that now but we’ll be underdogs in the semi-final as well but we’ll thrive upon that.” McGarry has suffered more heartbreak with Portaferry than he would care to remember but this team has adopted a different approach, he says: “There’s a new mentality. We used to be focused on what happened outside the team and what was being said and what was being written. This year we have battened down the hatches and focused our energies on our own game.” It is that motivation which saw them overcome Ballycran in the Down County final and Lisbellaw in the Ulster semi-final. Two games that have served up a mix of emotions for McGarry. In the county final, the 29 year-old was red carded which resulted in him missing the Lisbellaw game. Lining out against his brother JP was something McGarry would’ve relished: “When we beat Lisbellaw by nine points people were saying it wasn’t a convincing win. We hit 19 wides that day but we didn’t care what we won by, as long as we beat them by one. I didn’t get to play and I had to keep reminding people it wasn’t some kind of conspiracy, I didn’t mean to get sent off,” points out McGarry. “I would’ve loved to have come up against my brother JP and give him a dig,” he laughs. “Even though he is about five inches taller, I would’ve liked to remind him he is my smaller, younger brother!” “We always had our sights set on an Ulster championship though” he adds, “so I was probably more disappointed I didn’t get game time rather than anything else. There’s only so much you can do in training and after only playing half the county final, I was lacking a bit of game time going in on Sunday.” Asked how he felt about his own performance, he said: “Indifferent. It took me a while to get into the game. I got on the ball plenty but I probably didn’t have that bite I had in the county final. I tried not to waste ball though. The amount of pressure we put on their defence coming out with the ball was relentless. There was just constant tackles going in,” says the centre half-forward.

Kevin was cheered to victory by his wife Fiona who hails from Portaferry and her family as well as his own parents, Bernie and Kevin and brother JP. The support and welcome home was something that will undoubtedly live long in the memory: “It was great having my family there and throwing the arms around them at the end. Then the reception we got when we were coming into Portaferry, everyone was in cars and standing waiting, it was just unbelievable. Even though I’m a blow in, it was just brilliant.” Portaferry now await the Munster champions in the All Ireland semi-final but more imminently they have a relegation battle to contend with this Sunday, against Sarsfields from Belfast.

“We’re back training on Thursday (today) for Sunday. We had a slow start to the season but thankfully things picked up when the championship started. We know that the Munster champions, whoever that will be, will have played far more games but we’ll not fear anybody. To be able to say we’re in the mix, is absolutely fantastic.” “This is unchartered territory now,” adds Kevin. “We’re usually getting ready to go back to pre-season training. This winter is very different, usually we’re up to our knees in muck but we’ll be doing a lot more hurling and the management will have a plan in place for us over the next few weeks.”