St. Ergnat’s Kilmacud Cup Finalist.

On Saturday past the Moneyglass All-Ireland Feile winning team, managed by Kevin Madden and Ruairi O’Boyle headed to Kilmacud Crokes for the annual 7s tournament that would see the Antrim girls pit their skills against the crème de la crème the length and breath of Ireland. There were 32 teams who all started off in the cup competition. These teams consisted mostly of winning feile teams from all over the country. The competition was run with eight groups of 4 competing in a round robin with the top two going through to the cup and the bottom two to the plate.

First up for the Antrim girls was Gaultier from Waterford who were managed by former Wexford and Kildare Senior men’s manager Jason Ryan. This was a familiar opponent as Moneyglass had narrowly beaten them in the epic All-Ireland Feile final in Tobbercurry just six weeks previous. After a tense enough opening half the girls in blue and yellow pulled clear with a bit to spare. Defensively Moneyglass were tough, tenacious and uncompromising while at the other end the attacking trio of Leah Stewart, JoJo Darragh and Ruby McErlain were pulling teams apart. This victory was secured on a scoreline pf 6-1 to 1-5. This was followed up with a 6-1 to 1-1 victory over Leitrim team Fenagh and a 6-6 to 2-2 win over Arklow of county Wicklow. In the first of the knock-out games Garycastle of Westmeath proved to be a very physical tough opponent, but eventually the saffron girls ran out winners on a score line of 4-4 to 1-4 to reach the cup quarter finals.

The next game was to be their toughest game to date against the Clare representatives Fergus Rovers but a strong finish saw them home on a scoreline of 6-9 to 6-4. Into the semifinals and it was clear the St Ergnat’s girls were peaking at the right time as they produced their best performance to date on beating the Galway champions Naomh Mhuire 7-7 to 5-3. After six tough rounds of 20 minutes per game, 32 teams were now down to a mere duo. Antrim v Dublin. St Ergnat’s Moneyglass v Naomh Mearnog. The Dublin team from Portmarnock had already disposed of Lavey by 14 points so a formidable opponent lay ahead. As the rain came petting down to make underfoot conditions difficult, Moneyglass were struggling with the strength, size and physicality of their opponents who were goal hungry. Eight minutes into the first half Naomh Mearnog were nine ahead but a brace of penalties by JoJo Darragh had pulled it back to a single score going into the last five. With only a couple of minutes left a gallant Moneyglass had pulled the game from the fire against all the odds and led by a single point.

But a strong finish from Naomh Mearnog saw them bag 1-1 to run out winners on a scoreline of 6-3 to 4-6. Despite the disappointment in the end the Antrim girls could be hugely proud of their achievement on reaching the All-Ireland Final in beating teams from Leitrim, Wicklow, Clare, Galway, WestMeath, and Waterford. There were so many fine performers on the Moneyglass team but one name that kept getting mentioned by referees and opponents alike was the number 8, Leah Stewart, who many were touting as their Player of the Tournament. With over half their squad underage again next year perhaps we will see this young Moneyglass team go one better in 12 months time.

Moneyglass Team 

Aoife Griffin, Mia McLarnon, Caitlin Graffin, Aoife Leahy, Leah Stewart(c), Jojo Darragh, Ruby McErlain, Aoife McGroggan, Aibhle Oboyle, Katie Oboyle, Aedin Vallelly, Kym O’Boyle