Goggins sees goals as key to camogie win

KERRY’S camogie team manager Stephen Goggin believes his team’s best chance of All-Ireland glory this weekend is to score goals as Kerry take on Dublin in the All-Ireland Junior Final in Croke Park this Sunday.

In what would be Goggin biggest achievement to date, in a fledgling managerial career, the Causeway man feels there shouldn’t be undue pressure on the Kerry players to win against a team that was in an All-Ireland Final last year, but he is looking for strong Kerry support to back the team on Sunday.

“Goals win games in camogie to be honest. There’s no camogie team which will get twenty, twenty-five points, and that’s not being disrespectful to any camogie team, the couple of goals will always help you,” Goggin said. “If you get 2-13, 2-14 you will go a long way towards winning it, and we will need a couple of goals to get over the line on Sunday. We have been excellent in defence, and we have been since I have been involved, and what I have seen this year is that our forwards have been working very hard, which is great for our backs.

“Our aim is to go at (Dublin) and see what they are made of, really go at them from the start. They lost an All-Ireland final last year, they have the experience of playing in that, and if we are with them with ten, fifteen minutes to go have they the appetite, after what happened to them last year?

“Will the pressure come on them, because I think there’s no pressure on Kerry going up next Sunday, there’s nobody expecting Kerry to win, all of the pressure is on Dublin. We are going up in a nice way, and hopefully if we hit the ground running we will test them.

“I just hope the Kerry people come out and support them. We need as many Kerry people as we can in Dublin, and they will see a group of girls who will give everything for the jersey.

“I actually haven’t seen Dublin playing as a team this year. Since I have been involved we have played them four times, I know what they are going to bring to us. The team knows what they are going to bring, we have set out a stall which, hopefully, will help us. I know we are a bit small, a bit light as well, but up the centre we have got physically stronger.

“Out on the wings we are light but we are very pacey, and our game plan will be to try and keep the game open and take away the physical strength element.

“We are hoping that the pace we have will stand to us, if we are out in the open spaces contesting in one on one situations,” the manager concluded.