Eamonn Romney Coach Hire Down Senior Championship Final: Bredagh 5-12 Carryduff 2-4
BREDAGH claimed their seventh consecutive Down title with a comprehensive victory over Carryduff in Saturday evening’s final in Downpatrick.
It is now an 11th senior county championship for the south Belfast side who will now go into the Ulster series, where they reached the final last year, which gets underway next month.
Just like 12 months ago in their final win over Kilcoo, the defending champions got off to a blistering start with two goals in the first quarter to build up nine-point lead, 2-4 to 0-1 and at half-time that had stretched out to 12 points, 3-6 to 0-3, the majors coming from Clare Timoney, captain Eilish Ward and Viv McCormack.
Carryduff, who pipped Bredagh to the Division One league title this season and were appearing in their first final since 2020, got back to within six points within minutes of the restart with goals from Michelle Magee and Sian O’Neill, making it 3-6 to 2-3.
However, they could only manage one more point throughout the rest of the game, Bredagh outscoring their opponents 2-6 to 0-1, although 2-2 of that came in the last 10 minutes, Timoney and Eva Hicks raising the green flag.
It is a fourth final defeat at the hands of Bredagh since 2018 for Carryduff, who will certainly be disappointed with how the game panned out but will have no complaints that they lost to the better side on the day.
Bredagh captain Eilish Ward said this county title could be the best of them all.
“We’re over the moon to retain our title. I think it’s probably the sweetest one yet with so many new girls coming through the team so we’re really happy to get over the line,” she said.
“We performed well but there’s definitely areas to improve on. I suppose it’s difficult to always perform to your top level in a final but overall, I think we were really happy with how we performed.
I think it’s probably the sweetest one yet with so many new girls coming through the team so we’re really happy to get over the line
— Eilish Ward
“We managed the game well when it looked like they were coming back into it after half time.
“We will take a few days to enjoy the victory as that’s what you train for all year but thankfully, we’ll be back down to the training pitch come Tuesday.”
Saul won the intermediate championship defeating Clonduff 2-13 to 2-7 while Cumann Pheadair Naofa, Warrenpoint were crowned junior champions after a 0-19 to 0-5 win over Mayobridge.