MEATH ACE HAILS CROKE PARK SWAP
MEATH forward Emma Duggan has welcomed the decision to switch their All-Ireland ladies football semi-final against Cork to Croke Park this weekend.
The last-four tie was surprisingly pencilled in for far-off Tuam this Saturday initially, raising eyebrows in both counties and angering Cork in particular.
But when the KerryTyrone men’s game scheduled for Sunday at Croke Park was postponed, LGFA officials moved quickly to claim the slot.
It means Meath and Cork will be the lead act in a double bill of games that begins with the men’s AllIreland U-20 football final.
‘There were no arguments from our side anyway,’ said Duggan, the GPA Ladies Footballer of the Month for July, of the switch.
‘Any day you get to play in Croke Park is a great day out. Obviously it’s a lot closer to home, as well, than Tuam. No matter what the venue was, and where it was, we are delighted to be in an AllIreland semi-final.’ Cork boss Ephie Fitzgerald said the original fixture was ‘ridiculous’ and ‘beyond belief’, arguing that it was also unfair because Dublin and Mayo will play at Croke Park on Saturday.
‘Look, do you know what, there were probably a lot of questions about bringing Meath and Cork up to Tuam,’ agreed Duggan, who fired 1-5 in Meath’s quarter-final win over Armagh. ‘But that was an uncontrollable for us. There’s no point getting bogged down in that stuff.
‘We were going to go up and play it, whether it was up north, south, west.’
Meath will go into the tie as underdogs but have already upset the odds on several occasions.
Conquerors of Westmeath in last year’s AllIreland intermediate final, and Kerry in this year’s Division 2 league final, they got out of their senior group and surprisingly beat Armagh. ‘The 2019 All-Ireland intermediate final [loss] against Tipperary, that was the point we realised we had to take our game up a notch and that everybody had to bring higher standards,’ said Duggan.