Senior Ladies - Championship, Round 2

Kilmeena vs The Neale

Kilmeena 2 - 12, The Neale, 4 – 09

Kilmeena hosted The Neale on Sunday, 7th September at 11am, in this second round of the Junior A Championship. With both teams having lost their first-round encounters seven days earlier, each needed to get something out of this contest. Inthe final minute of the game, it looked like a draw was on and a share of the spoils would be the outcome. That was until The Neale pounced on some Kilmeena handling errors and had the ball in the back of the home side’s net - ‘it isn’t over until it is’.

A tough one to take but that’s sport!

The blustery weather conditions dictated that each team would only dominate one half of play. So, with the Kilmeena ladies having the strong breeze on their backs for the opening 30 minutes they needed to make the most of it. With two goals from the boot of Ciara Joyce and points from Lisa Hastings, Eabha Carney and Aoife Gannon, the home side gave themselves a reasonable cushion of seven points at the small whistle.

Half time score: Kilmeena 2 – 09, The Neale 1 - 5

Kilmeena faced into a strong breeze for the second half and struggled to get the ball up the field, so much so that the home side failed to register a score in the third quarter. All the while, The Neale were eating into Kilmeena’s lead and eventually took the lead themselves. Nonetheless, the home side kept working and eventually won a free, which Amy Carney converted to restore parity. The final seven or eight minutes produced two points apiece with the Kilmeena ladies grabbing the last of the minors to level this contest. It looked like the home side had battled sufficiently to earn a deserved draw, until The Neale got their fourth goal with the last attack of the game.

This was an entertaining contest with both sides having good spells of dominance and little to separate these teams. Ultimately, goals win games and that’s how it panned out.

However, the Kilmeena ladies can take lots of positives from this contest – they were competitive throughout and showedgreat character and resilience to dig their way out of a third quarter hole. This will stand to them.

Team; Ellie Mae Keane, Aine Gallagher, Laura O'Grady, Sheila Bohan, Sarah Mulchrone, Aoife Gannon, Sinead Hughes, Laura Kelly, Eabha Carney, Jaimee Geraghty, Lisa Hastings, Siofra Hughes, Amy Carney, Ciara Joyce, Emma Murray.

Subs: Mags Ryder for Jaimee Geraghty, Leah Walsh for Siofra Hughes, Katie Moran (Jnr) for Emma Murray and Katie Moran (Snr) for Sheila Bohan. Eva Mulchrone, Lucy O’Malley, Rachel Gibbons, Emma Jane Gill, Laura Ingham.