TG4 All-Ireland Ladies’ JFC final
Fermanagh v Louth (Sunday, Croke Park, 11.45am, live on TG4)
FERMANAGH captain Shannan McQuade says they are not in tomorrow’s All-Ireland junior final with Louth to make up the numbers.
The Erne county will start as underdogs against their opponents, who came down from the intermediate tier last season, and who also play a league tier above them. Yet that does not bother McQuade or her team-mates who want to see Fermanagh get back up to the intermediate championship and progress from there.
I’m there to win the All-Ireland final, it doesn’t matter who the opposition is,” she said.
“When you get to this stage, you don’t want to lose, I’d rather have lost the semi-final and I’m definitely not here to make up numbers. I don’t want to just play in Croke Park. I want to get promotion, to win junior and get up into intermediate.”
McQuade and Fermanagh are all too aware that when they have gone up from junior, it has been difficult to stay up for any considerable length of time.
Since Louth last won the All-Ireland junior title in 2019, they managed four years at intermediate level, while Fermanagh – who won junior in 2020 – only stayed in intermediate for one season as it ended with relegation. It was something similar in 2017 to 2018 with promotion and relegation in successive seasons.
Being a yo-yo team is not what McQuade, manager CJ McGourty or Fermanagh want.
“We’ve been up and down and up and down and, you know, it’s about getting up and trying to stay up there and to progress. to get up and try and stay up,” she said.
McGourty has also echoed those sentiments, but he is not underestimating how difficult an opponent Louth will be, especially with that Division Three and previous intermediate championship experience.
He feels, though, that having come up against Sligo in the qualifying group stages – the Yeats outfit were also an intermediate championship side last year – will stand to them. It should also offer a good indication of the levels they need to reach if they are to see off Louth.
“We had Sligo in the championship on the road and they are probably the best team we’ve played so far this year,” McQuade added.
“There’s a massive jump between Division Four and Division Three and there’s a massive jump between junior and intermediate, even just athletically and fitness-wise.
“We found Sligo a wee bit sharper and more athletic than other teams who were Division Four. So, it is a massive jump, but we also said at the start of the year that this isn’t a two-year or one-year program.
“You know if we happened to go up this year in the league or if we win the championship, we don’t want to be a yo-yo team because what’s the point in moving forward to come straight back in one or two years?”
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