'It’s unbelievable'- Richie Hitchcock on captaining Park-Ratheniska to Laois GAA IFC title

Asked if he could put into words what it meant to captain Park-Ratheniska to Intermediate Championship glory, Hitchcock admitted the moment was hard to describe as he tried to capture the emotion of the occasion.

“I can’t, it's unbelievable. I'm on cloud nine here at the minute, that's all I can say. It's hard-fought; they’re never easy win and by God, jaysus it's unreal,” he said.

Park-Ratheniska captain Richie Hitchcock downplayed his Man of the Match award, praising the team effort behind Friday night’s County Final win.

“Look, it's a team effort. You’re really only one-fifteenth of the team. No game is ever won by one man. Credit to the boys, they really dug in when the going was getting tough there. As I said, it's a team effort; the team always comes first. It's well-deserved. I can't wait to celebrate later on with them, it's brilliant,” Hitchcock added.

Hitchcock knew that even with a nine-point lead at half-time, Arles-Kilcruise would come out and go at his side.

“With Arles-Kilcruise, you'd really want to be in the dressing room afterwards before you say their beat. They came at us, never say die, they died in their boots and we had to be ready for that. Look, they put us to the pin of our collar. I think they got it back to five there. It wasn't comfortable in there. We got the free, and then the goal kind of sealed it at the end. As I said, until that final whistle goes, you can't stop against them fellas,” he commented.

Hitchcock and his side will now go forward to represent Laois in Leinster, something that he can’t wait to do.

“A Leinster campaign. It's always nice to be able to go into Leinster and represent your county. We won't worry about that now until probably Thursday,” he said.

With Johnny Nevin as manager, they have a member of the Park-Ratheniska Junior team that were crowned Leinster champions in 2006.

“Johnny's great. Johnny not only had us believing in him, but he had us believing in ourselves. That's a true testament to the leadership qualities that he has. We all love him. We all took to him straight away. He's been there, he's won Leinster with Park-Ratheniska, so he knows what it takes. We'll get behind him and whatever he says, we'll do,” Richie ended.

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