Clann ladies aim for redemption as club battles begin

By Kevin Egan

The road to redemption begins at home in Johnstown for Clann na nGael ladies this coming Sunday, as they get their first chance to atone for last year’s county final collapse in Ballyforan when they take on St Dominic’s in the first round of the 2024 Dermot Hughes Cars Roscommon LGFA senior championship.

With 15 minutes to play in last year’s decider, Finbar Egan’s side had a breeze at their backs and they had reeled in an early five-point lead for Boyle to edge in front by 2-4 to 1-6. It should have been plain sailing. Instead, they conceded 2-2 without reply, and all their aspirations of securing a Connacht championship rematch against Kilkerrin-Clonberne went up in smoke.

“It was hard to be away from the girls, particularly for the county final to be watching on and coming out of surgery was really tough. But they’re a fantastic group, there’s some great players in there and as soon as the final whistle sounded, it was in the past,” was how Jenny Higgins described the experience of watching the game from a hospital bed on the other side of the world in Australia.

“Clann didn’t become a bad team overnight and one loss doesn’t define the team. It would be in the back of your mind that in sport, if you’re not on it and you’re not performing, there’s somebody there to take the title off you,” Higgins continued.

Mark Cunningham is the new man at the helm following Egan’s departure. The Cavan native won senior club titles with Kinawley in Fermanagh in 2022 and 2023, and there’s no doubt that there was an element of bedding in going on during the league, but the return of Higgins and a drive to make amends for last year’s final is likely to put them in pole position.

Even though Boyle are the champions that are there to be dethroned, the absence of star player Róisín Wynne is likely to be a hammer blow that the northerners won’t overcome too easily.

Younger players such as Saoirse Wynne, Caoimhe Cregg and Aisling Feely should still be on an upward trajectory, but anyone who was in Ballyforan for last year’s final will have seen the older Wynne sister put in a tour de force, and it’ll be hard for new manager Pat Leonard to work around her absence.

Instead, the bigger threat to the 2022 champions could be their neighbours St Brigid’s, who picked up the Division One league title. Abby Curran was also in attendance at the championship launch, and she told the Westmeath Independent: “We’ve Laura (Harrison) and Eddie (Nestor) in with us this year and it’s going great, Laura’s a really good manager and a great coach, and Eddie is fond of a roar but he gets the best out of us! Obviously, we’re delighted with the league and now we need to carry that through to championship.

“We’re definitely going in the right direction, we’ve brought in a lot of U-16s and minors that are creating a fight for places.

“We want to carry on the club’s proud legacy. The 20th anniversary of the All-Ireland was held very recently in the club so it’s something we want to add to, to win a championship of our own over the next few years”.

Just a few miles up the N61, St. Dominic’s will also be very content with their league, Aimee O’Connor and Aoife Gavin both look fit and sharp up front and will be a scoring tandem that not many teams can match, while there is a world of depth in the club too. As is perennially the case, balancing matters with their camogie commitments will be crucial, while club chairman Michael O’Connor also has his hands full taking charge of the senior women and their U-19 and junior sides. But in a championship where the club will play on the first five weekends in a row and take on Clann, Brigid’s, Kilbride and Boyle in that run, being able to shuffle the deck and deal with the inevitable injuries and absentees should stand to them.

After that, it’s harder to see any of the remaining contenders making that much of a run.

Kilbride were a shambles defensively during the league, a campaign in which they won one game (versus St. Ciarán’s) by a point, and then conceded 32 goals in the other four matches. However, they were down a lot of players for various reasons, while a man of Con Moynihan’s experience isn’t taking over just to go through the motions. By the end of the inter-county championship, Aisling Shanagher was in superb form and demonstrating regularly that she’ll be someone that will play a key role, while they’ve won a couple of games in the U-19 championship, so there is potential there for improvement.

Boyle’s success in 2023 will give plenty of encouragement to Éire Óg, who are the new addition to the senior ranks this year. Rebecca Finan has been in superb form so far this year, albeit walking through Division Three is not ideal preparation for the senior championship.

With every year that passes, the memory of Shannon Gaels reaching the 2020 county final dims somewhat. On paper, it’s perhaps hardest to make a case for the Croghan club as potential champions, as there has been a huge amount of player turnover since that group went on something of a run. They’ve won games in the U-19 championship and they will lean heavily on a lot of those players, but failing to win a Division Two league title leaves them with the most ground to find out of any of the seven clubs.

The action gets underway at Kilbride and Croghan at 11am (Shannon Gaels v St Brigid's), with a 12 noon start for the contest in Johnstown (Clann v St Dominic's). The intermediate championship begins next weekend, while the August Bank Holiday weekend will see the first round of the Junior 'A' championship, where Pádraig Pearses and 2023 finalists Northern Harps are the leading contenders and set to do battle, but Clann’s second team will fancy their chances in a much weaker Group B.