‘Don’t get overwhelmed by it’ urges Casey
Emer Casey in action during her Player of the Match performance for the Roscommon junior ladies' footballers during the 2001 All-Ireland final against Kildare in Croke Park. Picture: INPHO/Patrick Bolger
It was an afternoon that promised so much for Emer Casey and her team-mates. And it ultimately delivered as Roscommon saved the best wine ‘til last, powering their way to a comprehensive 1-17 to 0-8 victory against Kildare in the 2001 All-Ireland junior final.
It was a bittersweet moment for the Ballinameen woman when the final whistle blew. She had been a revelation during the game, hitting 1-5 in a Player of the Match performance. But, during the game’s dying embers, her knee gave way and the abiding memory is of Casey being carried by team-mates across the field to join in the post-match celebrations.
Twenty-five years later, Casey, who missed out on the subsequent 2005 intermediate triumph against Down in Mullingar because of injury, takes a philosophical view on a special day in her life. She jokes she’d happily “break a leg” if it meant that Roscommon won an All-Ireland final on the biggest stage of all.
“I was so lucky that it (the injury) happened in the last 30 seconds of the game, and not the first 30,” she recalled.
“I remember the first ball coming in, and I was looking around Croke Park in awe of the place. The girl I was marking cruised out by me, I never moved. I looked over towards the sideline and they were going mad. I vowed that it was the last ball she’d win off me.
“We really gelled as a team. We seemed to dominate the whole field. We had been playing well all year, but we carried that into the final,” she continued.
The key, in Casey’s view, to the 2001 heroics was players, management and county board singing from the same hymn sheet. New faces, PJ Rabbitte and Jason Tanaine, brought ambition, and everyone else followed.
“Things were completely different that year. A new management came to us with a plan at the beginning of the year. You had to put in the commitment, or you simply weren’t considered. If you wanted to play, you had to be at training.
“We took things step by step. We won the league and then it was on to Connacht. Galway were beating us by seven or eight points by half time in the final, but we pulled it back and won it. Every game we played, there seemed to be more and more belief.
“All the stops were pulled out. Girls got what they needed. Whether you were coming from Tralee, Cork or college in Dublin, girls were looked after,” she highlighted.
Life has moved on. Emer is married to Patrick Lavin and they have three children — Katie, Eva and Johnny. Looking ahead to Sunday, she hopes that the current crop of players can maintain their focus to land the big prize.
“No more than when we played, there’s no star player. Every day they’ve gone out, one player shines as much as the other. They’re a well-balanced team with very good talent all over the field. And they’ve strengthened it up with the likes of Laura (Fleming) coming back — you need a little bit of that.
“I would be saying ‘don’t get overwhelmed by it’. Focus on the task and treat it as another game. Croke Park is Croke Park but don’t think about that until you get out the gap. You can enjoy every minute of it when you have the cup in the bag going home.
“Just block out the Croke Park factor, social media or whatever it takes to get the job done. Obviously, they’re going in there with a gameplan. But if it doesn’t work, I think this Roscommon team have loads of leaders around the pitch to lift it. Just make a pact to do everything in your power not to leave an All-Ireland title behind,” she concluded.
