Three weeks ago Kildress Ladies fell by a point to The Moy in a thrilling Murphy’s Gaelic Gloves Junior Championship Semi-Final but tonight they reversed that result with this 4-11 to 0-14 win over Tyrone’s fine new Junior Champions on a balmy late summer evening at Gortacladdy.
Kildress might have won by nine points but a ’15 scores to 14’ narrative probably gives a better understanding of what was an outstanding evening’s football, very well refereed by Fergal McDonald. After 10 minutes the teams were tied at 0-3 each before Kildress edged a couple of points ahead and then had a purple patch that saw them reach half-time 2-8 to 0-6 in front, with Ann-Marie Lennon on her way to a hat-trick of goals and Eilis Keenan in sparkling form alongside her. Moy had created their chances too, but were mostly thwarted by exceptional work from the Tones defence.
The quality was maintained in the second half as The Moy threw all they had at Kildress and were clawing things back in style, including several brilliantly-taken angled points, though Kildress always seemed able to raid up the pitch for relieving points just when they were needed. The Tones then broke for a game-clinching third goal and followed it up with a fourth that left this exciting Moy team with just too much to do.
This result leaves both Kildress Ladies Minors and Seniors in their respective League Finals and adds another chapter to that ‘post-lockdown’ story that has given us a quantity and quality of football at all levels in our Club that we probably have never experienced before. In the past five days alone we’ve had Kildress teams qualify for four different League Finals. ‘An rud is annamh is iontach – What is seldom is wonderful.’
Kildress: Charleen Quinn | Donna Hagan, Cathy Connolly, Aisling Hagan | Natacha O’Neill, Aoife O’Connor (0-1), Mairead Rafferty | Antaine McNamee, Rachel McKenna | Eimear McGarrity (0-1), Chloe Tracey (0-4), Eimear McAleer (0-1) | Eilis Keenan (1-4), Ann-Marie Lennon (3-1), Stacy Boone | Emma McKernan, Lanaoise Lagan, Anna Lennon, Cara Loughran, Anna Lennon, Aoife McElduff, Bronagh McAleer, Carla Leadon, Chloe McGowan, Ciara Hagan, Dominique Mullin, Emma O’Kane, Marie Daly, Niamh Brannigan, Nicole Keenan, Sarah McAleer, Shannon Crilly, Annie McKenna, Maeve Conway, Rhiannon Loughran
