Wicklow ladies face Meath this weekend
Wicklow welcome Meath women for Leinster opener
WICKLOW welcome Meath in the Leinster Ladies Football Intermediate Championship on Sunday and they’ll enter it as underdogs.
On the same day as Wicklow won the Division 4 league title, Meath contested the Division 3 final against Wexford. Although the Royal County lost on the day, the fact they are playing in a division higher than Wicklow will give them a firm advantage.
Mick O’Rourke and his team won’t worry about that though. They have a lethal forward line who can score for fun and more importantly they don’t rely on the one player. In the league final Marie Kealy nabbed a hat trick for herself while Laura Hogan was awarded the April Player of the Month. Jackie Kinch’s continued excellence was recognised with a place on the Division 4 Team of the League.
The rest of the team aren’t too bad either, to say the least, and manager O’Rourke spoke to us in advance of the game, starting with his reflection on the league.
“It’s a step up and it’s important to get to Division 3. The overall thoughts are that you can only be positive, the girls are on a bit of high at the moment. I suppose it’s a monkey off their back, they’ve been trying to get out of Division 4 for the last few years and now they’re finally out of it. That’s all positive going into the match against Meath next Sunday.”
He is under no illusion that the challenge will be tough but isn’t ready to throw in the towel yet.
“We’ll definitely be underdogs. Meath were in the league final, they beat Wexford last year’s Leinster final and they got to the All Ireland semi-final and they’ll be looking to make a step up. We’re trying to do the same thing. We’ll be looking for a strong performance.”
Wicklow have played Wexford a couple of times in challenge games this year and have an idea of where they stand against that calibre of team. There are no injury worries for Wicklow since the league and O’Rourke is hopeful his team’s winning feeling will see them stand toe to toe with Meath.
“The great thing about winning the league and the big thing that will stand to us next Sunday is that we’re going with the positivity of winning a league title. No matter what, Meath lost their last match. Winning is a habit and hopefully the girls will push on from that.
“The girls put huge effort into the league but in fairness to them, they’ve continued that effort and workrate and maybe they’ll be the surprise package in the championship.”
Whereas Wicklow have been on an upwards curve over the last few years and finally beat down the promotion door this year, Meath have stabilised having fallen in the opposite direction.
In 2016 they were relegated from the senior championship having competed there for a number of years without ever challenging for an All Ireland. In the same year they were relegated from Division 2.
Last year they won the Leinster championship and reached the Intermediate All Ireland semi final where they got within a goal of Tipperary, the eventual champions.
This year they finished second in the league table behind Wexford and lost to the Model County by four points in the final.
They can rack up a big score and they’ve hit seven goals in a game more often than they failed to score a goal at all. They notched 7-29 against Leitrim and beat Longford 7-14 to a point at the start of February. Longford beat Wicklow in last year’s league final.
Like Wicklow in Division 4, Meath had four players in the Division 3 Team of the League, though surprisingly only one of them was a forward. The two corner back spots were awarded to Meath along with the left half back position, though that might have been down to a few of their players missing some games along with the quality of forwards for other teams.
Paul Garrigan, widely known in Wicklow GAA, is part of the Meath backroom team and he gave us an insight into Wicklow’s opponents.
“We’re a young team, most of the girls are under 22. We really are in transition. They finished the bottom of Division 3 the year before. We’re making progress and while we were disappointed losing to Wexford, they are such a good team. If you said at the start of the year that we would get to the league final we would have been happy.”
While Meath were competing at a higher level a few years ago, Garrigan thinks only one of the players was on the panel in 2016 with the majority of players coming from a few successful minor panels. They reached the Minor B final twice, winning once.
The high number of goals Meath scored during the league gives everyone an idea of how they play.
“We’re very attack minded. If anyone saw us against Wexford it would be all out attack. We’ll try to get the scores on the board and we won’t be sitting back with four or five behind the ball. In every game we played this year we tried to do that and if we’re not good enough we’re not good enough.”
He continued with some of the players Wicklow supporters can look out for on the Meath team: “Stacey Grimes is one of the top scorers, she’s our free taker. You also have the likes of Vicky Wall injured at the moment, Megan Tyne, Fiona O’Neill and Niamh O’Sullivan. The girls in the backs were very consistent as well.”
Garrigan finishes with his thoughts on the game and he doesn’t necessarily agree that Meath are going in as overwhelming favourites, expecting a much closer result.
“I don’t think there is a huge gulf between the teams. Longford came up to Division 3 last year and they’re still in it, they didn’t go straight back down. Ladies football is funny at times, we’ve been inconsistent at times. It’s really about the way the girls turn up and the fact that it’s in Wicklow is huge compared to having to travel. I think home advantage in the Leinster championship is really beneficial.”
Wicklow will be up against it with Meath but they’ve put on a great show throughout the league and will fancy upsetting the odds.