TG4 LGFA All-Ireland Junior Final Reactions

By: Niall Kelly

A palpable buzz still lingers in the air following Antrim LGFA’s last gasp win on Sunday. In what was an absolutely pulsating sixty minutes of football littered with highs and lows, Antrim managed to navigate the stern challenge of Carlow and clinch a second Junior title in six years.

At the heartbeat of the side is captain, Bronagh Devlin. Her industry and passion on the field have been of vital importance for the Saffrons, not just on Sunday but over the past number of years. I managed to get a quick chat with the Moneyglass ace, who was joined on the team by her identical twin Aine, as she took a break from the recent well-deserved celebrations.

“I suppose now at this stage, it has actually sank in. It’s been a year of hard work and really backing each other as a squad. We’ve had a pretty good season in general, so Sunday was such a nice way to top it all off. We’re starting to come back down to earth now a bit after a super couple of days and it’s all been well worth it in the end.”

Sunday’s victory was also an opportunity for Antrim to vanquish the ghosts of last year’s bitter disappointment in the final to Louth. For Devlin, the defeat in the previous year only served to give them that bit more determination and resilience as she points to the fact that it perhaps helped to get them over the line when the going got tough on Sunday.

“Personally, I think that last year’s experience really did help us against Carlow. It started to come into my head during the game on Sunday where you start to think ‘oh no, this can’t be happening again,’ but I think from that defeat that helped us be able to reset ourselves to go again if something went against us.”

“We obviously chatted beforehand about what happened against Louth last year and we were so determined not to have that feeling again and I think the girls showed unreal character throughout that last couple of minutes to get over the line. I think we showed real hunger, and we were not leaving Croke Park without that trophy.”

With Sunday’s victory and Antrim now plying their trade in Division Two in the National League, the girls will once again compete at Intermediate level. This has always been the aim for the management and players alike and to achieve their goals next year, the captain of the ship believes they have to build on this success and try as best they can to keep a nucleus of the current squad to help any new arrivals.

“Keeping everyone within the squad is important. There are plenty of girls in with us who’ve sat A Levels recently and they don’t really know where they want to go for university. But, if people do opt to go away elsewhere, the past couple of years have proved what Antrim has within our clubs. There are more wanting to come out and play for the county and hopefully winning on Sunday will only help to encourage more of that.”

“We were playing Division Three this year, we won that and we know the standard that we can play at and that definitely has pushed on the girls within the squad already. We know that we deserve to be playing further up and it’s now a case of maintaining that.”

Reflecting on a superb year for the Saffron County, Devlin also paid homage to the managers at the helm this year.

“The managers came in when maybe Antrim football was possibly viewed at a bit of a low and they’ve really helped us push on. When you think about it in the last two years that they’ve been with us, we’ve reached two All-Ireland Finals and won this one.”

With so many clubs now very competitive in our leagues and with this current crop providing such inspiration to our younger gaels, Antrim LGFA is certainly on the rise. A huge congratulations to Bronagh and the rest of the squad from all at the Saffron Gael.