Lidl All-Ireland PPS Senior A Final: St Ciaran’s Ballygawley (Tyrone) v John the Baptist Community School (Limerick) (Today, Cusack Park, Mullingar, 1pm)
IT has been an exciting few weeks and months in the corridors and on the football pitches at St Ciaran’s, Ballygawley as the schools celebrates 50 years with two provincial Colleges’ titles and quite possibly the dream of two All-Ireland titles.
First up tomorrow are the College’s senior girls team who will face Limerick side John the Baptist Community School in the Lidl All-Ireland Schools’ Senior ‘A’ final with the boys, having just won their own All-Ireland semi-final two days ago, reaching the Paddy Drummond Cup final to be played in Croke Park Saturday week.
This is a first ever senior All-Ireland final for the very successful school, which collected its third Ulster Schools’ Senior title defeating Our Lady’s Castleblayney, 1-16 to 2-5, in the final at Emyvale at beginning of February after knocking out defending champions Loreto Cavan on their way to the title.
It is not, however, a first All-Ireland final for the Tyrone school, winning the Junior ‘A’ All-Ireland title as recently as 2014, so it is no surprise really that they are contesting an All-Ireland senior decider with seven players remaining from the Under 16 All-Ireland winning panel - Shauna Stevenson, Shannon Stevenson, Laura McAleer, Clodeach Donaghy, Tara O’Hagan and major scoring threats Maria Canavan and Chloe McCaffrey.
Back then it was former Tyrone senior mens player Pascal Canavan and former Tyrone ladies county star Selena Oguz who managed the school to All-Ireland success.
While the latter remains an integral part of the success of St Ciaran’s College’s ladies football teams, the former has been replaced by one of Tyrone’s greatest inter-county players, Neamh Woods.
And she says that very early on in the year, it was evident that this team had the potential to go as far as they wanted.
“St Ciaran’s had never won an Ulster U20A title before and therefore we were simply taking it one game at a time,” said the Drumragh club player.
“We were fully aware of the potential within the squad, and once we had played our first few league games, it was evident that there was plenty of talent and that an Ulster title was well within their capabilities.”
Woods is under no illusions of the task that lies ahead tomorrow afternoon for the players, who face opposition that are in their third All-Ireland senior final having moved swiftly and impressively through the grades from ‘C’ level to the top of ‘A’ level while their U16 team is also in the All-Ireland Junior ‘A’ final too against Loreto College, Cavan next weekend.
“John The Baptist are without doubt an excellent team,” she said. “Like ourselves, they have a big overlap in players from their u16 team who are also through to the U16A. We know Friday’s game will be an extremely tough encounter but one we are looking forward to.”
While the Limerick school had an impressive 8-8 to 2-12 win over Presentation College, Tuam in their All-Ireland semi-final, St Ciaran’s had to dig deep to see off Scoil Chriost Ri Portlaoise 5-4 to 1-11.
While McCaffrey and Canavan were the main score-getters, key to the victory was the team’s defensive performance - Orla Mulgrew, Saorla Mullin, Cloideach Donaghy, Grainne Mc Kenna and player of the match Meabh Corrigan were superb with Corrigan making two stops on the line too in the latter stages.
“Chloe and Maria are exceptionally talented players and have really led by example this year; however, the entire team has worked tirelessly throughout our games. Every player has her part to play and every player makes a significant contribution,” said Woods.
“We showed great character during our semi-final and our defence were outstanding that day.
“The defence have worked so well together this year in each of our games and have really been the backbone to our success to date.
“We have trained well collectively since our semi-final and have had plenty to work on. We had an excellent first half in the semi-final and we were disappointed with our second half performance on that day.
“Having not played to our potential on that occasion has given us plenty to work on ahead of the All-Ireland final.”
