Woods leads from front for ‘clinical’ Tyrone

A GOAL in each half from captain Neamh Woods helped Tyrone claim the TG4 intermediate title and secured their return to senior football after a three-year absence.

Niamh Hughes, Gráinne Rafferty, Niamh O’Neill and Gemma Begley also hit the net for Gerry Moane’s side, who put the upset of last year’s defeat at the same stage behind them to win their first adult All-Ireland title since their 1999 junior success.

Their elevation to the top level of the game in which they’ll pit their wits against the likes of Dublin and Cork next summer is just reward for the huge effort put in by the squad, with manager Gerry Moane and his backroom team hailing the hard work behind their progress.

“For the last two years I have been looking at getting that performance. You always strive for it but you don’t always get it,” said Moane.

“If you were going to do it at any stage you might as well do it today. We had something like that last year and didn’t grasp the start, but we had it there today. You can talk and talk about being clinical, but what a time to do it today!”

After winning the toss and electing to play against the wind, Meath would have been pretty happy to find the target first when captain Niamh O’Sullivan made the most of Stacey Grimes’ strong run on four minutes.

But Tyrone soon found their first score, and went in front when Woods exchanged passes with Rafferty and palmed to the net after six minutes.

With Woods (below) pulling the strings at midfield, and their powerful half-back line carrying well, it was no shock to see them goal again in the tenth minute, as Hughes finished neatly from Áine Canavan’s pass.

The early goal rush on 13 minutes when Rafferty crept in behind the Meath cover and finished off Begley’s diagonal delivery.

Meath looked rocked and beaten at that point, but with Grimes to the fore, Eamonn Murray’s side produced a powerful ten-minute spell to close the gap to 3-2 to 0-7.

But Tyrone finished the half strongly. After Chloe McCaffrey stopped the rot with a great point, Begley and Emma Jane Gervin linked well and substitute O’Neill – on for the injured Canavan – finished off another super move for a 4-3 to 0-7 half-time lead.

A veteran of the 2010 senior final, Woods is a real driving force in this Tyrone team, and two minutes after the restart she waltzed though the Meath defence and fired her second goal to put them in the driving seat.

O’Neill showed her talent with three points in six minutes to push Tyrone 12 points ahead, although she was soon sin-binned along with Meath’s Máire O’Shaughnessy.

“We have quality players,” said Moane when asked about the surprising ease of their victory. “There are quality, quality forwards and there was always going to be some day they were going to deliver on the big stage. It’s about encouraging them to express themselves.

“You have to encourage them to kick. There is a lot of talk now about systems and negative football. Ladies football is not negative. And I am a great believer in positive football.

“Yes, we will take care of our defence, but let’s play football. We knew we had footballers on our team. If you allow them to go and play football, they will do that for you, and that’s immensely satisfying.”

Grimes, Vikki Wall and Orlagh Lally kept Meath’s tally moving, but it was fitting that Begley notched Tyrone’s final goal. She first played for Tyrone ladies back in 2004 and has won all sorts of individual accolades, but was left broken-hearted by losses in the 2010 senior final and last year’s Intermediate defeat to Tipperary. The hard graft was done by the energetic Emma Mulgrew and Begley was left in space for a confident finish.

The Royals had a number of half-chances for goals, but Tyrone defended stoutly until giving away a penalty in the final quarter which Grimes fired to the net. But by then it was too little to late for Meath. SCORERS – Tyrone: N Woods 2-0, N O’Neill 1-3, G Rafferty 1-2, G Begley 1-1 (0-1f), N Hughes 1-0, C McCaffrey 0-2. Meath: S Grimes 1-5 (1-0 pen, 0-3fs), N O’Sullivan, F O’Neill, O Lally 0-2 each, V Wall, M Thynne, E White 0-1 each. TYRONE – S Lynch; E Mulgrew, C Conway, E Brennan; N McGirr, S McCarroll, J Barrett; N Woods, EJ Gervin; N Hughes, L Quinn, A Canavan; G Rafferty, G Begley, C McCaffrey. Subs: N O’Neill for Canavan (12), M Canavan for Quinn (43), E Hegarty for McCaffrey (51), C Hunter for Barrett (55), C Kelly for Begley (58). MEATH – M McGuirk; O Lally, O Duff, K Newe; N Gallogly, S Ennis, M Thynne; M O’Shaughnessy, K Byrne; M Farelly, A Cleary,

V Wall; S Grimes, N O’Sullivan, F O’Neill. Subs:

S Wall for Cleary (10), A Leahy for Gallogly (37), E White for O’Neill (45), B Keogh for Ennis (52), S Powderly for Byrne (52). REF – G Carmody (Roscommon).