Mayo ladies blow storm clouds away
Old hands to the fore as semi-final ticket is earned
Mike Finnerty
THE more things change the more they stay the same. Gone forever is the novelty of ladies football in this part of the world but the Mayo senior squad carry on regardless. Five years on from their last All-Ireland win they find themselves back in a semi-final. Give up? Them? Never.
Fittingly, last Saturday’s quarter-final presented these well-travelled ladies with yet another challenge.
With the storm clouds gathered in Dublin all morning, the rain fell in torrents too. In fact, so bad was the doom and gloom that the giant floodlights were switched on twenty minutes before the start. There was going to be nothing easy about the return to Croke Park.
It was always going to be a day for grafting and playing smart; that’s where the likes of Byrne, Lohan, McGing, Egan, Carter, Heffernan and Staunton came in. They had been down this road before. And it showed. They knew what they wanted and they knew how to get it. They knew how to win.
With twenty-three minutes to go, and after giving almost as good as they had got, Kerry trailed by seven points. By the end they had rallied and hit 1-2 without reply to draw within a solitary score. But on a day when Mayo went back to basics, they had held out. Mission accomplished.
Their two goals turned out to be the decisive scores when the rain stopped and the final whistle sounded; Cora Staunton rolling in the first brilliantly on 23 minutes and teenager Kathryn Sullivan palming in the second seven minutes after half-time. Kerry, for all their enthusiasm, determination and gusto, never recovered from these hammer-blows.
The game started in surreal circumstances; a tiny crowd of a few hundred people getting soaked wet in the giant stadium as Mayo settled quickly. A couple of frees from Cora Staunton and a well-taken point from play by Lisa Cafferky established a 0-3 to 0-1 lead after seven minutes.
But Kerry’s free-taker Geraldine O’Shea didn’t miss a kick in the first half and five points meant that only Staunton’s goal separated the teams by half-time. It was created by the vision and imagination of Aoife Herbert who played a neat one-two with Fiona McHale, before setting up the lethal Cora for an exquisite finish.
Mayo were playing most of the good football, and linking up well in attack, but they were finding it difficult to convert the chances into hard currency.
Staunton drilled 1-4 in that first half with Fiona McHale, Lisa Cafferky and Marcella Heffernan also nicking scores that meant Mayo led by 1-8 to 0-8 at the break.
Cora missed as many opportunities in that first half as she took but another free on 36 minutes nudged Mayo four points clear. Then lady luck (and the treacherous conditions) intervened and Mayo reaped the benefit.
The second half was seven minutes old when Lisa Cafferky’s goalbound shot was half-blocked, two Kerry players dropped the bar of soap that was masquerading as the ball, and Kathryn Sullivan flicked it to the net. It was 2-9 to 0-8 and the damage was done.
However, it will be a cause of concern to Messrs Ryder, Connolly and Jordan that Mayo were outscored by 1-6 to 0-3 from there to the finish. Kerry attacked in waves during the last quarter and were it not for the perception of Helena Lohan, and the tireless covering of the likes of Martha Carter and Fiona McHale, the ending may not have been as happy.
A couple of frees from Cora and a good score from Martha Carter was all Mayo managed in the last twenty minutes as the direct running of Kerry’s Patrice Dennehy started to reap benefits.
Still, Mayo led by 2-12 to 0-12 with ten minutes to go before Kerry hit a purple patch that yielded frees from Geraldine O’Shea and Dennehy and a magnificent goal from O’Shea that squeezed inside Yvonne Byrne’s left-hand post.
A replay was a definite possibility as Mayo dropped deeper and deeper into their own half, but the final whistle came just in time for them. Their six week lay-off from the Connacht final did Mayo few favours coming into this game but the usual suspects ultimately pulled them through.
Now for the semi-final. Another day, another challenge.
MAYO
Y Byrne; N Beegan, H Lohan, N Hurst; N Tierney, C McGing, D McDonagh; C Egan, M Carter (0-1); F McHale (0-1), M Heffernan (0-1), K Sullivan (1-0); L Cafferky (0-2), C Staunton (1-7, 6fs), A Herbert. Subs used: C Connolly for Sullivan; A Loftus for Beegan; M McGing for Herbert.
KERRY
L O’Driscoll; C Buckley, G Ní Fhlatharta, K Gleeson; C Kelly, E O’Mahony, M Finnegan; S Joy, B Breen; D Corridan (0-2), D Murphy, M O’Donoghue; P Dennehy (0-4, 2fs), L Ní Mhuireartaigh (0-1), G O’Shea (1-7, 7fs). Subs used: S O’Sullivan for Buckley; A O’Sullivan for O’Mahony; S Houlihan for O’Donoghue; E Murphy for Corridan.
Referee: B Gallagher (Tyrone)
