ARMAGH LADIES AIMING TO KEEP ULSTER ON TOP
NEW YORK v MAYO
CAN Armagh’s ladies footballers follow Derry’s giant-killing men and keep Ulster’s Gaelic football juggernaut rolling?
That’s the big question ahead of their first ever Lidl Division One final against defending champions Kerry on Sunday.
All of the 2024 AIB club men’s titles were won by Ulster teams: (Glen (Derry), Cullyhanna (Armagh) and Arva (Cavan).
Derry didn’t blink in their shoot-out with the Dubs last weekend and the Allianz Division Two final was an all-Ulster affair (Donegal beat Armagh).
Ulster University won the third-level Sigerson Cup and Omagh CBS captured the boys’ secondary schools’ Hogan Cup.
Won
UP FOR THE MATCH: Armagh captain Clodagh McCambridge (left) and Kerry skipper Niamh Carmody ahead of the 2024 Lidl Ladies National Football League Finals
Two of last month’s three girls’ secondary finals were also won by Ulster schools; Our Lady’s Castleblaney (Senior A) and St Colomba’s Glenties Comprehensive (Senior C)
Now the Orchard women have a chance to keep the province on this incredible roll.
And their brainbox fullback captain Clodagh McCambridge, who works as an actuary, thinks the laws of probability favour them.
They may only be back in Division One for the first time in seven years and in their first premier final but they met Kerry in the Division Two decider in 2022.
Tiers
McCambridge says the Kingdom’s subsequent run to a Division One title and two All-Ireland senior finals in-a-row and Meath’s similar trajectory before them, shows there’s little between the top two tiers in the ladies’ game.
Armagh have blazed an unbeaten trail under Gregory McGonigle, included their 3-14 1-13 defeat of the Kingdom.
“In other years that might have been a game we would have lost,” McCambridge says.
“We were up at halftime, they had a good third quarter but we were still able to see it out.”
Another Ulster team is involved in Sunday’s Division Two curtain-raiser (Tyrone v Kildare) at Croker, while Saturday’s Division Three (Clare v Roscommon) and Four (Limerick v Carlow) deciders are in Birr.
“And then John Prenty [Connacht GAA CEO] and his warriors, they hadn’t envisaged a defeat, so the qualifier competition, I don’t know the fine print of it but I remember him saying to me there was no rule for Roscommon to be back in the competition.”
Heavy
Roscommon had done well in Division One that year and, though they suffered a heavy League semi-final defeat to Kerry, there was no fear of them becoming the first county to lose a Championship game to NewYork.
But as the game entered its climax, the home side had all the momentum.
“They sure had. I don’t particularly want to revisit those moments! I’ve gone through the therapy and out the other end. They were super on the day, and Roscommon weren’t as good as we wanted to be.
“And it got very, very tight. They’d a chance, I remember, they went around the ’keeper to kick the ball into an empty net, and I think the New York lad got a little bit casual and Geoff Claffey put out his boot, and it hit the top of his boot and spun over the bar.
“And now it’s squeaky. But I remember we put on Senan Kilbride, and he kicked a monster from the wrong side – he was a ciotóg, a very accurate ciotóg, but he was on the left side, out on the sideline, and he put it over the bar. I do not know how he did it.”
The season petered out for Roscommon