Claregalway ladies aiming to put seal on dream season

CLAREGALWAY will go head-to-head against a club that share similar characteristics as them when they contest the All-Ireland club intermediate ladies football decider at St. Loman’s, Mullingar on Saturday (1:30pm).

It’s an intriguing final, given both Claregalway, who claimed county and provincial junior honours in 2011, and reigning All-Ireland junior champions Thomas Davis have rose impressively up through the ranks over the past two years while also continuing to build for the future with big underage successes.

For their part, Claregalway blitzed their way to the inaugural Connacht club minor title when defeating Clann na nGael of Roscommon on a 2-22 to 0-6 scoreline earlier this month while further evidence of Thomas Davis’ meteoric rise was their first ever Dublin county minor title win over O’Toole’s recently.

However, both Claregalway and Thomas Davis eyes will be firmly fixed on the bigger prize this Saturday and with each outfit showing an insatiable run of form of late, this has the potential to be an extremely enjoyable encounter.

First to Claregalway, who having claimed a 4-19 to 2-4 replay victory over Clonbur in the county decider, subsequently submitted equally as impressive performances against Glencar/Manorhamilton of Leitrim (8-18 to 1-1) and Tourlestrane of Sligo (1-22 to 0-5) in the Connacht semi-final and final respectively.

This set up a date with fancied Cork outfit, Boherbue at Tuam Stadium a fortnight ago. Although Martin Costelloe’s ladies fell four points to one in arrears early on, goals from Charlotte Cooney and Deirdre Brennan saw Claregalway overturn this deficit to hold a seven-point advantage at half-time.

The Connacht champions continued to underline their quality in the second period as Ciara Newell tallied her side’s third goal to extend their lead to 10 points by the three-quarter mark before Cooney and Newell (penalty) registered goals four and five to secure Claregalway a 5-13 to 0-12 victory.

No doubt, this Claregalway team have become a relentless scoring machine with the likes of Deidre Brennan (3-19), Ciara Newell (6-10), Michelle Dunleavy (2-13), Charlotte Cooney (5-6) and Ciara Burke (0-19) to the fore for the Galway women in their last five championship games. Full preview in this week’s Connacht Tribune.