A TRIO of St Brigid’s footballers were present last Sunday as Dublin U-21 ladies footballers were crowned All-Ireland champions in Nenagh for the second year in a row.
Ciara Trant, Deirdre Murphy and Leah Mullins were the Brigid’s players involved as Dublin beat Cork 0-14 to 1-8.
In what was an extremely closely fought final, Dublin captain Carla Rowe opened the scoring from a free just two minutes into the contest. Cork responded quickly however hitting two unanswered points before a major incident on 11 minutes angered all in red and seemed to spur on those in blue.
Cork midfielder Aine Terry O’Sullivan finished past Dublin keeper Trant to score the game’s first goal only for referee Gerry Carmody to disallow the effort as he had, unknown to seemingly everyone else in the ground, blown his whistle just before Sullivan had hit her shot to award Cork a free.
The decision awoke Dublin as they hit five unanswered points with Oonagh White and Niamh Rickard both grabbing scores and Rowe converting her second free to leave the Dubs three clear on 18 minutes.
It was then Cork’s turn to fight back as they went up and scored a goal and a point to edge ahead before Rowe struck again with two points while Raheny’s Siobhan Woods effort meant the capital went in leading 0-10 to 1-5 at the break.
Cork came flying out of the blocks at the restart and hit two points to bring the game level for the fifth and final time. Rowe hit another free on 36 minutes.
It was the penultimate point of a player of the match performance, while Woods scored again to leave Dublin two ahead with 15 minutes remaining.
The rebel county’s rising star Doireann O’Sullivan began to influence the game heavily at this point, making surging runs from midfield at the heart of the Dublin defence but that rearguard of Deirdre Murphy, Martha Byrne and Leah Caffrey stood strong and held firm as they had for much of the tie.
Cork’s final score of the game came on 46 minutes from the excellent Laura Fitzgerald but Dublin had two more in them and they came from Clann Mhuire teammates Rowe and White as the game crept into stoppage time.
Cork had one final chance to draw level with a late free but O’Sullivan’s effort crashed off the crossbar and into the arms of a Dublin defender which ended the action and meant Dublin were winners of the Aisling McGing Cup for the second year in a row.
