Antrim Camogie Senior Championship Semi Final
Dunloy 2-17 Cushendall 2-06
28th Sept 2024
Dunloy 2-17 Cushendall 2-06
A rejuvenated Dunloy side shook off the ghosts from their recent loss to Loughgiel in the championship table stage, and brought energy and dominance to quell Cushendall’s game plan and book a place in this year’s final.
Cushendall bookended today’s match, having started on a roll and kept hold of a small lead for twenty minutes or so in the first half and then came back in the final stages to tally up two goals. It would prove too little and too late as Dunloy had amassed a ten point difference by the twenty eighth minute of the second half and all but one of those points came from play.
Cushendall won Owen Elliott’s coin toss and opted to play towards the road end in today’s semi final. It would take the Dall only seconds to turn over a loose sliotar from the throw-in and Kady McNeill would get Cushendall on the scoreboard with only twenty seconds gone.
Five minutes would drift by before Dunloy would reply from a free taken by Nicole McAtamney and as both sides traded points to level out at four points apiece in the twenty second minute, a total of eleven fouls had punctuated the game and left supporters wondering who would survive the stop-start and it would be Dunloy to perculate first out of the grind. Dunloy’s Katie Molloy gathered up the sliotar and using nothing but her sheer strength, pulled away from a defending pack to put Dunloy one point in the lead after twenty three minutes. Dunloy would tack on another point from Eobha McAllister as she received a long hand-pass from Katharine Mullan.
With four minutes to the short whistle, Dunloy were now starting to breakdown Cushendall’s defence and when Katie Molloy was pulled to the ground, McAtamney dropped in a dangerous sliotar that Goalkeeper Louise Mulholland saved and cleared away. The Cuchullains though would be knocking on the Dall’s door in short shrift as Molloy pointed and having tasted her second point, was happy to rescue a dying strike from Eobha McAllister and deliver deep into Mulholland’s net for the first goal in the game at thirty two minutes on the clock. Elliott calculated something in the region of six minutes of extra time would be needed due to the accumulation of time from earlier fouls and with no score from either side after Dunloy’s goal, Elliott brought the first half to a conclusion with the large Fridge Raiders’ scoreboard announcing Dunloy 1-07 Cushendall 0-04.
With Cushendall playing with whatever was left of the afternoon’s breeze on their backs, expectations were running high that something might come from that slim elemental advantage, but Dunloy’s Katie Molloy wasn’t having any of that, as Eobha McAllister dropped in a cunning ball twenty seconds from the throw-in and Molloy punished the space with a rocket to the back of Mulholland’s net.
For the next twelve minutes, Dunloy would start to put away seven points as if they were going to go out of fashion before Cushendall replied with a point from substitute Amy McAlister and one of the finest points of the game from Cushendall’s Kady McNeill as she solo ran from just over the half way line, protecting the sliotar all the time on her stick, despite several challenges to dispossess.
Dunloy’s right wing forward, Aine Magill would grab similar attention as she caught a dropping ball on the edge of Cushendall’s ‘D’ and sent that fizzling over the bar to bring scores to Dunloy 2-15 Cushendall 0-06.
But Cushendall were determined to fight back despite the scoreboard displaying twenty seven minutes gone in the second half, as Aoife McClafferty was pushed in the back and the resulting free from Brogan Abram dropped in towards the terrace steps and it would eventually fall to Kady McNeill to strike at Dunloy’s net for the Dall’s first goal.
Despite the goal, Dunloy were by now home and dry. A point from Katie Molloy before Cushendall’s Kady McNeill struck at the heart of Aileen McManus’ goals for the Dall’s second of the game, was matched by Dunloy’s Eobha McAllister to give Dunloy a comfortable win of 2-17 to 2-06 at the end of two extra minutes.
Dunloy will now meet Loughgiel to set up an exciting final of the Antrim Camogie Senior Championship 2024, details TBC.
Dunloy starting panel and scorers:
Aileen McManus, Sarah McIlhatton, Brid Magill, Kathryn Boyle, Casey Crawford, Katie Laverty, Caoimhe Conlon, Eimear Johnston, Katharine Mullan, Nicole McAtamney 0-07 (2f), Eobha McAllister 0-02, Bronagh Magill, Aine Magill 0-02, Katie Molloy 2-03, Cassie McArthur 0-03
Cushendall starting panel and scorers:
Louise Mulholland, Caoimhe McNaughton, Sinead Cosgrove, Anna McNeill, Aoife McClafferty, Ellen Leech, Laura Black, Cara O’Boyle, Siobhan McKillop, Brogan Abram 0-01, Eva McNeill 0-02f, Laura McMullan, Kady McNeill 2-02, Orlagh O’Hara, Orlaith McAlister, Amy McAlister 0-01
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