Limerick ladies lose out in close contest
Carlow 1-7 Limerick 0-6 Substitute Maeve O’Neill struck a 55th minute goal at Grant Heating St Brendan’s Park in Birr on Saturday to help Carlow towards a first ever Lidl National Football League Division 4 title.
Thanks to the presence of Storm Kathleen on these shores, Limerick played with the aid of a gale-force breeze in the opening half of this contest. It took the Treaty women a little while to get up and running, but unanswered scores from wing-back Meadhbh MacNamara, dead-ball specialist Deborah Murphy and Iris Kennelly ultimately gave them a threepoint lead on the first-quarter mark.
Although the likes of Aoife Carroll and skipper Ruth Bermingham were performing well in defence, Carlow were struggling to create attacking opportunities when playing against the elements.
Yet the Barrowsiders were able to keep Limerick on their toes with extended spells of possession football and they finally opened their account on 25 minutes as Bennekerry/Tinryland star Cliodhna Ni She split the posts off a close-range free.
This significantly boosted the spirits of their travelling supporters and having managed to keep their Munster counterparts scoreless for 18 minutes, Ed Burke’s side were just two points adrift at 0-3 to 0-1 at the interval.
LATE GOAL SEALS RESULT
A wind advantage now in their favour, Carlow levelled matters within three minutes of the restart thanks to a brace of successful frees by the dependable Ni She. Momentum now appeared to be with the Leinster outfit and even though Limerick attempted to batten down the hatches, Roisin Bailey and Rachel Sawyer knocked over quickfire points from play to give Carlow a 0-5 to 0-3 platform on the stroke of 40 minutes.
However, Limerick reduced the deficit to the bare minimum with a second point from Kennelly moments later and subsequently breathed a sigh of relief when Ni She had a goal disallowed from a long-distance free.
Limerick then restored parity through Monagea’s Murphy, only for Ni She’s latest place-ball point to edge Carlow back into the ascendancy in the 48th-minute.
After also scoring a crucial goal in their semi-final victory over Fermanagh, it was then left for the impactful O’Neill to roll a low shot to the net with five minutes remaining on the clock.
Caoimhe McGrath’s pointed free kept Limerick in the hunt, before Bermingham chipped over an excellent score at the death to seal a precious national crown for Carlow.
THE BETTER TEAM WON
Limerick joint manager, Sean Kiely, said that overall they were “disappointed”.
“The girls will be exceptionally disappointed. I know we’ve promotion got out of it, but they will feel that they could have done a bit better today. That’s just the way it is. You just have to take those things, it’s only the National League at the end of the day. We still have the promotion and there’s a long season ahead.”
“There’s a very strong breeze here today and it was always going to be a game of two halves. Overall, Carlow seemed to use the breeze a little bit better than we did. We went in two points up, but it probably wasn’t enough of a cushion against a quality side like that.
“We had a good few misses in the first half, which didn’t help our cause. To be fair to Carlow overall, they were the better team on the day. I thought they played the conditions very well, so fair play to them,” he said.
TEAMS & SCORERS
Limerick: C Bateman; J McGuire, Y Lee, F Bradshaw; G Lee, C Mee, M MacNamara 0-1; R Ambrose, L Ryan; K O’Leary, D Murphy 0-2 (1f), K Heelan; E Woulfe, A O’Sullivan, I Kennelly 0-2. Subs: G Mullane for Heelan, R Browne for McGuire (both h-t), C McGrath (0-1f) for O’Sullivan (47), K Kennedy for Ryan (55), M Kavanagh for Woulfe (59).
Carlow: N Hanley; A Carroll, A Roche, S McCullagh; R Bermingham 0-1, N Murphy, N Forde; E Hayden, R Bailey 0-1; B Nolan, R Sawyer 0-1, S Doyle; E Molloy, E Coogan, C Ni She 0-4 (4f). Subs: S Hayden for McCullagh (h-t), M O’Neill (1-0) for Coogan (47), T Lyons for Nolan (52), M Townsend for E Hayden (55), E Ware for S Hayden (59).
Referee: Declan Carolan (Armagh).