All Ireland LGFA Junior Football Championship
Carlow 3-07 Antrim 8-16
PICS BY ELAINE KELLY PHOTOS
Antrim senior ladies made the long journey to Carlow on Sunday in the All Ireland LGFA Junior Championship and after emphatically beating the home side 8-16 to 3-7 they have secured their place in the All Ireland semi final on Sunday 13th July at Clones with a 4 pm throw in …
Indeed Antrim made light work of a Carlow team that played a division above the Saffrons this year …
With just 15 seconds on the clock Theresa Mellon had raised the first green flag of the day, but the lead was short lived as from the resulting kick out Carlow broke up the pitch and raised a green flag of their own..
From Antrim’s kick out they secured their own possession and Niamh Mc Intosh and Maeve Blaney combined to set up Lara Dahunsi for her first of a personal tally of 7 points from play …
Carla Mc Kenna then turned over the Carlow kick out and she sent Maria O Neill racing through and with her new golden boots she hit the roof of the Carlow net …
Dahunsi, Anna Mulholland and Maria O Neill then all raised white flags before O’Neill found the bottom corner of the net after some sublime football between Aoife Kelly and Ciara Brown to further stretch their advantage.
Lara Dahunsi then knocked over two more points and the lively Theresa Mellon added a point to her earlier goal, before Carlow replied with a point and were then awarded a penalty which their full forward tucked into the bottom corner…
However from the kickout Antrim created a classic goal. Aine Devlin hit a short ball to Orla Corr who in turn found the raiding Niamh Mc Intosh down the right hand side. Niamh fed Aoife Kelly who spotted Sarah O Neill bursting through the middle and she made no mistake finding the net from close range.
Again Antrim turned the kickout over and Laura Agnew found Maria O’Neill in space and she completed her hat-trick with 25 minutes on the clock …
Indeed two minutes later Maria returned the favour to Laura and she raised a green flag of her own …
O’Neill then knocked a free over the bar and the last score of the half came from Lara Dahunsi when the St Paul’s player caught a wonderful ball in the air before turning two defenders and split the posts from all of 30 metres.
Indeed Lara was causing the home defence endless problems with her intelligent runs for the ball and her quality finishing….
The second half opened with an Ana Mulholland point after brilliant approach play from Eimily Kearns and Aine Kelly. Maeve Mulholland was the provider for Antrims’ next two points when she found Maria O’Neill twice in a row with two long range passes.
Carlow got two points of their own before the hard working Aoife Kelly got her just reward that her performance deserved when she rounded a defender and the keeper and coolly rolled the ball into the net …
Lara Dahunsi then took her total to 7 points from play when she slotted over two scores in quick succession.
Aine Lynch, who had a magnificent game in the middle of the field, then sent Maria O’Neill clear down the right hand side and she slipped the ball across the square for the lively Blaithin NiCahill who nipped in in front of two defenders to palm the ball into the net and raise the green flag for the 8th time for the Antrim girls and unselfishly laid it off to Maria O Neill to to get the final score of the day and secure that All Ireland semi-final place in style.
Antrim scorers were
Maria O’Neill 3/05
Theresa Mellon 1/1
Aoife Kelly1/0
Sarah O’Neill 1/0
Lara Dahunsi 0/7
Anna Mulholland 0/2
Blaithin Ni Cahill 1/01
Laura Agnew 1/0
Team manager Micky O’Kane said after the game.
‘Our girls were outstanding today ..
their football at times was an absolute joy to watch …
Every girl in our panel takes credit for that performance.
They all work so hard and give up so much time to represent their county.
They all enjoy playing football and are all very competitive at training …
It would be great to see a massive support in Clones in two weeks time which would be really appreciated by these girls in their quest to reach an all Ireland final ..
