The Forty-Five this week talked to Eamonn Leper Callaghan about everything from skinny jeans (there’s a really weird lads jeans trend happening in Ireland at the moment) to how to stay at the top level of sport for nearly 20 years as well as what to do once your inter-county career comes to an end.
It was always going to be Callaghan’s final year with Kildare and it was made all the more special by the fact that they reached the first ever round of Super 8s.
And, they had to beat some tough opposition to get there and they don’t come much more tougher than Mayo.
Speaking to Eamon Fennell and Ross McConnell, Callaghan said from the minute the decision was made by the GAA, Kildare were unified in the fact that it was Newbridge or nowhere.
The Kildare lad’s decision was so final that it wasn’t even talked about that much.
When asked if it affected the team much or was it extra motivation, this was what Callaghan had to say about the story that gripped the nation for a whole week.
“It wasn’t really for us. It was mental. The atmosphere that day was unreal and to be apart of that was unbelievable.
“It wasn’t our fault, it was Croke Park that decided the whole thing. We had decided earlier in the week ‘are we going to play in Newbridge or Croke Park’ and it was just unanimous in about three minutes that it was Newbridge or nowhere.
“We were aware that if Mayo showed up in Croke Park and we didn’t, we were out.
“But we said we weren’t going. We went back training the Tuesday as normal.
“We talked about it for about two minutes before training and trained as we would usually would and that was it.
“Even though the whole place was going crazy in the background, we just carried on as normal”.
The Newbridge or nowhere discussion starts bang on the 30:00 minute mark.
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