TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Championship Final: Tyrone v Leitrim (Croke Park, Sunday, 1.45pm)
AS far as debut seasons go for Tyrone’s Aine Grimes and Ciara Colton, they could not really have asked for any better – promotion to Division One for next season and on the verge of a return to senior championship football with a second Croke Park appearance in Sunday’s TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Championship Final against Leitrim (1.45pm).
Grimes, who is still only 18, has established herself as a vital cog in the middle of the field alongside captain Aoibhinn McHugh during this championship season. She made her debut against Westmeath in the first league game, making her championship debut as a substitute against Monaghan but since then she has been in Sean O’Kane’s starting line-up, also chipping in with a couple of points along the way.
It has not all be plain sailing for Grimes, Colton and their team-mates as they navigated their way to the All-Ireland final. They bowed out of Ulster to Monaghan in the semi-final before losing their opening All-Ireland group game to their final opponents, giving up a nine-point lead to lose by one. They got back on track with a victory over Wicklow to reach the last eight before pulling off one of the results of the championship defeating one of the favourites, last year’s finalists, Clare, on their home turf, coming from behind to do it. Ulster champions Down were next, grinding out a hard-fought win to be one of the last two standing.
That defeat to Leitrim, especially under the circumstances, stunned them, admits Grimes, but there was no better time to get a wake-up call.
“It was just a different game. It just really flipped upside down and you couldn’t describe like the feeling after. Even the first training session back, everyone was just down in the dumps. But we got that out of every system very quickly, it was one game, and we knew we could do a lot better. Everyone knew that was just not our day, and that on the day, if, when we meet them again, that it would be a lot better,” she said.
Defender Colton, who plays her club football with Dromore, echoed those sentiments, but said how they have responded since and especially with the wins over Clare and Down, has turned their championship season around.
“The Leitrim game we took as a tough loss, but we’ve definitely grown from that and learned a lot from it, learned from our mistakes. We’ve gradually picked ourselves up, and every game has been a learning curve, and what we can bring on to the next game. Clare was a very tight game, we really didn’t know what way it was going to go, especially traveling down there as well but everyone stood up to the challenge,” she said.
“We proved ourselves in that game [against Clare],” added Grimes. “They obviously had a big winning streak, and thankfully, we came out on the good side of it. It was nice to get over that line then against Down. We knew that there’d be full of confidence, which is to be expected with all the great results they have had as well as being Ulster champions.”
Neither players could have envisaged what would lie ahead when they started out pre-season – two trips to Croke Park, two national finals, promotion to the top tier of league football and now just 60 minutes from promotion to the top tier of championship football.
“My first year in the setup, it’s been an extra special year. Like to get to Croke Park the first time in April, it was amazing so to get back there again is something else,” said Colton.
“We are really looking forward to it, everyone is excited for a second day in Croke Park, you can’t beat that. I know there’s loads of ones supporting us and coming down to see us, and it would just mean everything, honestly.”
Grimes added: “We have the experience of playing in Croke Park, we know what it feels like too to lose. We have come more together throughout the end of the season, and everyone’s just buzzing, and there’s just a whole lift, so it’s all looking good.”