AIB Ulster senior camogie final: Loughgiel (Antrim) 3-16 Swatragh (Derry) 0-5
IN the moments after Saturday’s AIB Ulster senior club final in Beragh, Loughgiel joint manager Ronan McCloskey was reflecting on a season of “two halves”.
“For the first half of the season, we were crippled with injuries and we had to push girls through into the team,” said McCloskey.
“That brought them on and really strengthened the panel overall and we know now that we have competition in almost every position as a result.
“It wasn’t great at the time having so many players out of action right through to late summer; it was frustrating for us as a management team. But when they came back in, we feel that we are a much stronger panel going forward.”
McCloskey, who won an All-Ireland club title with the Shamrocks in 2012, still picked out the leadership qualities of the more experienced players.
“We’ve got them in every line of the field.
“The likes of Emma McFadden, she shows that experience in every game keeps all the players around her calm.
“You’ve got Christine (McCloskey, the captain) there…. Lucia (McNaughton).
“The younger girls in the squad listen to those players, respect them and that’s a great attitude from both the experienced and the younger ones.
“It brings everyone on.”
There were periods early in their previous three games where Loughgiel had to soak up a lot of pressure, even see their opponents establish an early lead before they turned the game around.
Swatragh also threw everything they had at them in the first ten minutes in Beragh, before the Shamrocks took the lead and powered on for the rest of the game.
McCloskey said: “We had played Swatragh in challenge games and we knew they are a really good team off the shoulder.
“We have tried over the past couple of weeks to work on nullifying that and today I think it worked.
“We have lull periods during games and we are trying to work on those.
“People say that most of the time, it’s at the very start.
“But Dunloy, Clonduff, Swatragh they came at us hard at the start of the game to try to put down a marker.
“Today I think we showed that we were really up for the game. Those first ten minutes can be a bit chaotic but we worked hard enough and got through them and took control.
“The amount of hooks and blocks we got in was brilliant.
“We don’t go out to purposely set up defensively. Sometimes we end up with just two in the full-back line.
“But everyone in our defence has been so steady all year and we have been able to bring on subs there. Look there’s depth there too.
“For us now it’s all about pushing on over the next couple of weeks and getting ourselves ready for the semi-final.”
That semi-final will be a repeat of Loughgiel’s only All-Ireland final appearance two years ago when they lost narrowly to Sarsfields.
“When we play outside Ulster, it’s a different style of play, a different environment, a different type of challenge,” said the former Shamrocks player.
“So we will have to tweak our preparation. But we will still be going out to play our type of game and stick to our strengths.”
