Ulster LGFA Junior Final
Antrim 3-08 Derry 2-07
Antrim senior ladies were crowned Ulster junior champions on Sunday at Healy Park Omagh when they defeated Derry by a scoreline of 3-8 to 2-7
This was their second trophy of the season as they won the National league in clones 5 weeks previous…
Antrim started slow and couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm at all and after 5 minutes found themselves trailing by 2 points, Cara Donnelly and Annie Ni Lochlainn getting the Derrt points.
Player of the match Maria O Neill opened the saffrons account with a point and captain Bronagh Devlin then brought the sides level…
Derry though hit the front again after 15 minutes when they scored a point and they soon went stretched their lead with a goal from close range by Aine McAlister.
As hard as Antrim tried they just couldn’t get a score but 20 minutes into the game Maria O Neill raised a green flag to leave the minimum in it but back came Derry with two points of their own from Ni Lochlainn and McGeough,
Ana Mulholland and Ciara Brown then sent over points for Antrim and the Saffrons went in at half time trailing by just one ..
Antrims first half preformance was way below par with neither players or management happy with the first 30 minutes, but they came out for the second 30 minutes a different team and with 6 minutes gone of the half Theresa Mellon hammered the ball to the roof of the Derry net to give them the lead.
Both teams then traded 2 points each with Maria ONeill and Bronagh Devlin registering for the Antrim girls ..
Antrim at this stage took control of the game and the impressive Lara Dahunsi knocked over a long range point before Maria O Neill raised her second green flag of the day …
Derry were still in touch though and they reduced the arrears to 3 late on, but the last score of the game was another great score from Lara Dahunsi to give her team a four point win.
Bronagh Devlin then lifted the cup as her team completed a league and championship double.
Antrim A Devlin; Aine Kelly, M Blaney, M Mulholland; S O’Neill, C Brown 0-1, C McKenna; A Mulholland 0-1, O Todd; T Mellon 1-0, M O’Neill 2-2 (0-2f), Aoife Kelly; B Devlin 0-2f, L Agnew, A Tubridy. Subs L Dahunsi 0-2 for Todd, N Jones for Kelly
Derry T Cassidy; C Dillon, G Brewster, J Corr; O McEvoy, S Hargan, B Donnelly; L Brewster, A Crozier; C Hargan, A Ni Lochlainn 0-4 (0-2f), A Martin; A McAlister 2-0, C Donnelly 0-1, O McGeough 0-2. Subs A Donnelly for McEvoy, B Brolly for Martin, N O’Donnell for Hargan, C O’Kane for Dillon, J Slevin for Brolly
Referee G Gormley (Tyrone)
Antrim manager Micky Devlin said after the game …
“We were poor in the first half … we didn’t make things happen and played with very little fluency…
A reality check had to be taken at half time …
In the second half we controlled the game better and made better use of the ball…
Workrate was upped and we turned a lot of thier kick outs over which lead to a few of our scores.
This is another great day for these girls as they work so hard and are always prepared to listen and take things on board.
As a group we alll are well aware that we have a long way to go but progression is there to be seen by everyone and we certainly are still a work in progress”
