All-Ireland Club Hurling semi-final: Slaughtneil sticks together after more heartbreak

There was no beating the traffic out of St Conleth’s Park or finding a hostelry to drown your sorrows… at least not yet.

The people of Slaughtneil were there on the pitch attempting to offer words of comfort to sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, boyfriends, uncles, cousins, neighbours and friends.

Or in some cases to partially misappropriate a Heaney phrase, “saying nothing” – just being there for them. Sticking together as a community as they always do.

For even a neutral with no skin in the game, the moments after a contest where Munster champions Sarsfields dashed Slaughtneil’s All-Ireland Club Hurling ambitions on a wafer thin 0-18 to 0-17 margin were a tough watch.

Shane McGuigan inconsolable as he shed tears into the shoulders of his people, whether team-mates, family members or other Slaughtneil folk.

Free-taker Cormac O’Doherty trying to hold himself together as he stared down the pitch from just in front of the goalposts where moments earlier, captain Mark McGuigan had flashed a gilt-edged chance over the bar when goal would have snatched Slaughtneil victory.

Rogers smiled ruefully as family, friends and neighbours patted him on the back and offered their condolences as Slaughtneil suffered a fifth defeat in five attempts at the All-Ireland semi-finals stage.

There it was time to face the microphones and try to find the right words.