Longford ladies reach TG4 Leinster Junior Football Championship Final
Title decider against Carlow in St Conleth’s Park, Newbridge this Saturday
Under the guidance of their new manager Dave Lambert from Kildare, the youthful Longford ladies football squad are through to the TG4 Leinster Junior Championship Final.
Longford . . . 5-25 Kilkenny . . . 0-1
The massive win over Kilkenny at James Stephens GAA Club on Saturday by a most emphatic 39-point margin got Longford through to the title decider due to the superior scores difference over Offaly who lost by 10 points against unbeaten Carlow.
Longford were depending on a swing of 44 points to pip the Faithful County for second spot after the counties were deadlocked on the same number of points in the group stage of the stand alone Leinster competition with the All-Ireland Junior Championship still to come.
Winning in Kilkenny was always going to be a very easy task and their reward is another crack at Carlow in the provincial final at St Conleth’s Park in Newbridge this Saturday (throw-in 1.15pm) in the curtain-raiser to the Westmeath v Wexford showdown in the Leinster Intermediate final.
Carlow are going great this season after winning 11 games in succession including the Lidl National League Division 4 success (overcoming Leitrim in the final) and will be extremely hard beaten.
When the counties clashed in the group stage Longford lost by 7 points and must plan for the Leinster final without the injured Michelle Farrell (Colmcille) and Lauren McGuire (Carrickedmond) who both featured in that first round fixture at Emmet Park in Killoe.
Leading by 2-11 to 0-0 at the break against struggling Kilkenny with Katie Crawford and Sian Gallagher scoring the goals, the rampant girls in blue and gold added another 3-14 to their tally in the second half to achieve the result they required to reach the Leinster final.
Crawford got a couple of more goals on the changeover in ending up with the impressive total of 3-4 while the accurate Aoife Darcy also figured most prominently in attack throughout this so one-sided encounter with 11 points (8 frees) to her credit.
The other goal in the second half came from Kamille Burke and Longford will hopefully give it their best shot in the bid to spring a shock against the confident Carlow side in the provincial decider.
The solitary Kilkenny point did not materialise until the second minute of stoppage time approaching the full-time whistle.
LONGFORD: Aoife Cooney (Clonguish); Aisling Scanlon (Mullinalaghta), Leanne Keegan (St Brigid’s Gaels Ardagh), Emma Doris (Killoe); Sorcha Dawson (Ballymore), Emma Bleakley (Dromard), Emma Farrell (St Brigid’s Gaels); Sian Gallagher (St Brigid’s Gaels, 1-2), Shauna Hagan (Dromard, 0-2); Aoife Nolan (Rathcline), Katie Crawford (Carrickedmond, 3-4), Hannah Burke (Clonguish); Shauna Madden (Clonguish, 0-1), Kamille Burke (Clonguish, 1-3), Aoife Darcy (Clonguish, 0-11, 8 frees).
Subs:- Katherine Kilduff (St Brigid’s Gaels) for A Scanlon (half-time); Zara Drake (Ballymore, 0-2) for A Nolan (44 mins); Ailbhe Mulligan (Killoe) for S Madden (59 mins).