St Odhran's Silvermines into Ladies Football County Final
LADIES FOOTBALL: Camida Tipperary Junior 'B' Championship Semi-Final
St Odhran's Silvermines 1-10
Moyle Rovers 0-7
St Odhran’s Silvermines booked their place in the County Junior ‘B’ Ladies Football Final following victory over Moyle Rovers in Dolla on Sunday.
It was the visitors who took the lead with a point after turning over St Odhrans Silvermines who had attacked from the throw in. They continued to play at a blistering pace in the first ten minutes which St Odhrans struggled initially to come to grips with.
Both defences were playing well and were turning over the opposition with aggression and trying to counter at pace. After a coming to grips with the Moyle Rovers pace, St Odhran’s began to press hard with midfielders Niamh Cunneen, Maeve Steed, helped by their half backs Ciara Ryan, Eimhear Troy and Maria Moroney started getting on top of their opposition to commence attacks.
Scores were hard to come by however it was three points apiece by the 20th minute where the pace of the game never subsided. From this point on, St Odhran’s half forwards of Clodagh Daly, Sarah Madden and Kellie O’Dwyer started to influence the game more and were beginning to find gaps in the Moyle Rovers defence with some piercing runs, creating scoring chances that unfortunately weren’t converted.
Moyle Rovers were also beginning to struggle containing the St Odhran’s full forward line of Niamh Cunneen, Emer Moroney and Rachel Shanahan while the fullback line of Aileen Moroney, Ava Quigley, and captain Nessa Murray were winning their own battles and launching more attacks.
St Odhran’s should have scored more but for some wayward shooting and last ditch defending from the Moyle Rovers rearguard. St Odhran’s only added two points to their tally by half time and were sucker-punched by conceding a point at the stroke of half time, which left them only leading by one point, 0-5 to 0-4.
St Odhran’s shot out of the blocks at the start of the second half and opened out the lead to three points by the 40th minute but also squandered some opportunities for further scores.
Moyle Rovers started to claw their way back into the contest to reduce the gap to one point by the 45th minute. However, following some substitutions for St Odhran’s with Maeve Cunneen, Emily O’Neill, Ailbhe O’Keeffe and Lily Morris introduced, and positional switches, the pivotal moment occurred when Clodagh Daly struck the only goal of the game to swing the game decisively in St Odhran’s favour.
Moyle Rovers were dealt another blow when one of their players received a yellow card and thus were reduced to 14 players for ten minutes, during which St Odhran’s turned the screw with additional substitutions (Robyn O’Dywer, Aishling Kennedy & Faye McKeogh) extended their lead to six points.
Entering the last five minutes, Moyle Rovers threw everything to get back, however Jane Ryan in the St Odhran’s goals pulled off the saves required and with some solid defending kept the scores conceded to a minimum, with St Odhran’s Silvermines running six point out winners.
St Odhran’s Silvermines will meet Rockwell Rovers, who impressively beat Golden Kilfeacle in the other semi-final by a large margin, in the final which is scheduled for the weekend of 3-4 October. When the two sides met each other in the league phase back in early August, Rockwell ran out winners.