Nine months on from last year’s Leinster final and Daniel Flynn’s one-on-one miss against Stephen Cluxton still haunts him.
We’ve all been there. You have one big chance for your score to define a game and it goes begging. For most of us, whose biggest sporting achievement is running onto the pitch after an All-Ireland final, you’re only subjected to a bit of slagging after it all.
Daniel Flynn’s Leinster final goal miss hurt him much, much more.
“I didn’t go out that night, I couldn’t sleep sure,” he said in a brilliant interview on The GAA Hour.
A David Slattery pass gave Flynn the opportunity to reduce Dublin’s lead to three points with only Stephen Cluxton in front of him. The Kildare man should have struck gold but kicked the football at the perfect height for the keeper to save.
While the Dubs ran out eventual nine-point winners the goal would have curbed their momentum and Flynn hasn’t been let forget.
After Wooly suggested on the most recent GAA Hour that the miss was forgotten, Flynn told a brilliant story from only the day before.
“Ah stop will ye,” he laughed.
“Sure we had a club auction day yesterday down in the pub, and whoever was making the slideshow, they were auctioning off two leinster final tickets.
“Low and behold, here’s this big, massive thing up on the screen of me missing the one-on-one with Cluxton. I stormed out of the pub and back into the shop.”
Flynn, was a late developer as a footballer and only began to take it seriously in his late teens. Having only returned from Australia in 2014 due to homesickness, he hadn’t played full-forward until last year’s championship and could be exused for not having the instinctual ability to put the ball past Cluxton.
That didn’t stop him form blaming himself at the time though.
“It just all happened so quick. I ran behind Brian Fenton and there was just an acre of space and I couldn’t believe what happened and sure bottled it and kicked it at him.”
Now a mainstay full-forward, Flynn set the National League alight with scores and has finally put the miss behind him, in his head at least.
“What could you do,” he sighed.
“It’s not as If I’ve been playing there for the last 10 years. It’s something that’s new and something that I’m still kind of learning to play there.”
“What could you do only put it down to experience and move on.”
Listen to the full interview below.
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