Mayo U-16s ready to exact ‘revenge’ in All-Ireland semi-final

WHEN the Mayo U-16 girls travel to face Munster champions Kerry next Thursday, it will be their first competitive game in 74 days. 

Mayo blazed a trail of utter destruction through Connacht before meeting an obdurate Galway team who they’d beaten by 14 points earlier in the year. 

With eight of last year’s panel, and 14 All-Ireland U-14 title winners, Thursday’s All-Ireland semi-final will be Mayo’s third in as many years. 

A team with talent such as U-14 All-Ireland winning captain Emma Stagg (Hollymount), Emma Higgins (Claremorris), Kate Byrne (Moy Davitts), Westport’s Aoife Meaney (a Connacht title winner with Sacred Heart School) and many more, has certainly earned the right to be there. 

“There’s a few of them that have come up to me in the past week saying ‘Can the game be played now?’ They’re ready to go. They’ve been there, they’ve seen what it takes to get over the line in the semi-final,” Mayo U-16 manager, Francis Regan, told The Mayo News.

Looking back, their epic Connacht title victory over Galway in Bekan on April 14 seems like a lifetime ago.

It was so long ago, indeed, that even the seasons have changed. 

“When we played our last competition game against Galway it was a windy, rainy heavy pitch, and now we’re going to real summer football,” said Regan. “So that was one thing that we tried to tailor in our training, the type of training we were doing.”

For the first three weeks of that ten-and-a-half-week-long hiatus, the Mayo Gaels man and his selectors had their feet up (metaphorically) as all 35 players were released back to their clubs. 

Since county training resumed, many of the panel have sat their Junior Cert. A three-point defeat to Cavan in Cavan and a handsome win over Waterford in two challenge games, a few bonding trips and lots of training have Mayo primed and ready for Kerry team on Thursday evening. 

That same Kerry team - who also needed extra-time in their provincial final to beat Cork 0-14 to 0-12 - travel to Rathkeale with no shortage of talent, but their real star is their captain Muireann Teahan, who scored 0-3 from midfield in the Munster final and, according to Regan, ‘would start on any county team going’.

But, a bit like Tony Blair, these Mayo U-16s can feel the hand of history resting on their young shoulders. 

“We have girls there U-16 last year that are still feeling the hurt from losing to Cavan last year. They're out for revenge and want to be in the final. They want the same success as the U-14s last year,” Regan said.

“There’s a lot going on in the camp, there’s lots of different emotions,” the Mayo Gaels man continued. “People look at what happened last year and then they’re looking at a few years ago when Mayo got a bad beating off Kerry in the semi-final in the U-14s, so they’re out for revenge. They're all ready to go and they can’t wait for it.”

FIXTURE 

LGFA All-Ireland U-16 ‘A’ semi-final

Mayo v Kerry 

Thursday, June 27, Mick Nevill Park, Rathkeale, Limerick at 7.30pm