Cork Ladies’ Football
Cork Ladies’ Crowned All Ireland Minor Champions 2015
Semple Stadium was the venue for two games of Ladies’ Football with Cork inter county teams involved on Monday last. The Cork Senior Ladies played Meath in the All Ireland qualifiers as a curtain raiser to the Minor Ladies’ Football final. The senior ladies having lost to Kerry in the Munster final in Mallow recently were up against Meath and this turned out to be a very one sided affair with the All Ireland champions running out easy winners. The team showed many changes from their last outing and also it afforded the mentors the opportunity of playing a number of players who have been knocking on the door for the last few seasons and in fairness they all aquitted themselves very well. Cork will now play Galway in the quarter final on August 15th and thankfully all players will be available on that date following discussions with the Camogie association.
The Minor final turned out to be a hard tough battle against a very good Galway side that were going for three in a row at this grade. Cork, playing with the aid of a very strong wind in the first half, started well and were ahead by a point from Hannah Looney in the opening minute. This was follow by another from Cork captain Eimear Scally but for the rest of the half Cork was chasing Galway as the westerners scored a goal in the eleventh minute and dominated at all quarters. Cork backs did well as they came under severe pressure from a very good Galway forward line. Despite their dominance Cork kept in touch with points from Scally, Laura Cleary and Looney and this saw both sides even at the break 1-02 to 5 points.
Cork introduced Niamh Murphy of Erin’s Own and she had an immediate impact as she ran at the heart of the Galway defence and broke up the play. The Cork girls finally cut loose scoring two goals in a two minute period, the first from Shauna Cronin and this was followed by a goal from Laura Cleary following a blistering shot from Scally. Galway did manage a goal of their own but Cork were now playing some lovely football despite the strong wind. Hannah Looney gave an exhibition of football at centre forward and the management team made a number of further substitutions most noticeably Jess Tonks of Fermoy who also was superb. The inside line of Cleary, Scally and Kate Leneghan were also on fire taking many fine points. Hannah Looney crowned a great day when she scored the best goal of the match almost on the stroke of full time and the Aghada girl deservedly was awarded the player of the match. This was a great team performance from Cork who took their eighth title at this grade on a score line 3 10 to 2-04
Congratulations to all East Cork girls on the panel.
H Looney (Aghada), S Cronin (Mayfield), G Collins, J Tonks, I Pyne & A Scannell (Fermoy) C Hickey (Lisgoold) and N Murphy (Erin’s Own)
East Cork Ladies Gaelic Football 