Carey happy to play a different role in Pearses' latest success

By Kevin Egan

A 24-year-old who upped sticks for the summer to play football in Boston hardly screams ‘veteran’, but whether he likes it or not, Paul Carey has been cast into that role now. Out of the eight players that started Sunday’s county final from midfield up for Pádraig Pearses, only Conor Daly has seniority on him.

Nonetheless, the evolution that Carey has gone through is undeniable. When he made his first county final appearance in 2019, he shot two points from play and was an X-factor in an otherwise mature Pearses team. Two years later he scored a goal and was a key attacking weapon in their run to Connacht glory, but on Sunday it was a different role again. His first two big plays were within 25 metres of his own goal, a block and a dispossession to turn over Roscommon Gaels attacks, and as the game went on, he was both a provider, and a freetaker.

And as he basked in the glory of his third county medal, that sat just fine with him.

“It is definitely different,” he told the Westmeath Independent.

“It’s a bit surreal that Adam McGreal, Conor Ryan, Conor Harley, Jack Nevin, they’re 19. I was in the exact situation here in 2019 when I was the only 19-year-old on the pitch. Just having all of those lads coming through in the first county final… even Eoin (Colleran) and Jack Tumulty, Caelim Keogh as well, it was their first county final to start. This is only going to bring them on as well massively, and it’s great for us.”

Even if it means he has to spend much more time in his own half of the field?

“That’s us as a team, we’re all trying to make heroes out of each other, it’s not about who gets the scores. To be honest, that’s what got us here, and that’s what got us over the line.”

Carey agreed that in addition to that team ethic, game management and solid decision-making on and off the ball was crucial.

“Honestly, when I woke up this morning we didn’t even know if we were going to be playing! It went ahead and it was very difficult out there, but in fairness to both teams, I think we put on a good spectacle.

“We’ve big players in every line and they’re well able to control a game. Game management is a massive thing that is being impressed on us in training. We won’t be happy with that spell of ten minutes where the Gaels really came at us, but it is a final at the end of the day, they were always going to get a purple patch and we got ourselves back into it and got the couple of scores to finish it out”.

They did get a couple of key scores – one of which was a free, where all eyes in Dr Hyde Park were on him.

As he speaks, the posts at the town end of Dr Hyde Park are moving in the gale-force wind. It was a tight-angle shot, with a world of pressure on his shoulders, and lots of time for him to consider the importance of this one swing of his right boot.

This, more than anything, was the moment where maturity and big-game temperament would be tested. So what was he thinking about?

“There’s absolutely nothing going through your head, you’re just going through your routine and trying to execute the strike. I was never as happy to see that ball going between the posts!” he replied.