Westport ladies react to historic senior county title victory

THEY say belief without ability will only get you so far.

But when they come together like they did for Westport on Sunday, they are a match made in heaven.

“This tops anything.” So said Mayo captain Saoirse Lally after being a part of the first-ever Westport team to shatter senior football’s glass ceiling.

“I’ve played with a lot of these girls since I was six or seven years old and nothing beats this feeling. We’ve made history in the club.”

“I actually couldn’t even put it into words,” said her captain, Janette O’Malley, who is training to be a solicitor.

“I think I’m still in shock. It’s everything we’ve been preparing for, this is years and years in the making so I’m just delighted, delighted.”

If anyone was going to hold Knockmore to 2-4 it was Westport.

The manner in which they contained the most high-scoring senior team in Mayo was very admirable, but as they showed in the last few minutes, you can never count them out.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Mayo News (@themayonews)

“It’s exactly what we expected,” O’Malley told The Mayo News.

“We knew they were going to come back at us guns blazing. The quality of the players, they were always going to come back at us, we’re just so delighted we got over the line.”

Being tasked with watching snipers like Lara Sweeney and Clodagh Keane in the last line of defence, O’Malley and Lally knew exactly what they were up against.

Indeed, the backs were arguably as pivotal to this win as the forwards were.

“We knew Knockmore’s six forwards are as good as each other, not one of them stands out,” Lally told The Mayo News.

“We knew we had to mark the six of them, but we also knew MacHale Park is a forwards’ pitch and we knew we had to push up as well and get our scores on the board straight away in the first half because we did that two weeks ago against Burrishoole and they caught up to us. Our aim this week was to just keep our lead and not let Knockmore get the first few scores.”

Westport themselves were in a similar position in last year’s final, where they eventually overcame the jitters and rallied late but ultimately fell short.

Fast forward to a year, and the shoe was on the other foot.

“Last year was our first final and this year we kind of just took the emotion out of it, took it as our fifth or sixth game and thankfully we got over the line,” Lally told The Mayo News.

Belief, ability and a plan were the three main things Westport needed to beat Knockmore. At least that's the impression you get talking to corner-back Noirin Moran.

“I think that’s something that the management team have kind of instilled in us is, that belief no matter what happens, we stick to our own game and do what we do,” the ex-Mayo footballer told The Mayo News.

Pop Geraghty, the man who guided them through the gates of history, paid tribute to some of the men who stood on sidelines before him, such as Neil and Kenneth Chambers, Tony Keane and James Gillespie.

“We just wanted to build a few extra bit of percent that we felt would get us over line,” a humble Geraghty told The Mayo News when asked to reflect on a glorious debut season as manager.

“So it wasn’t re-writing the book; it was just trying to unearth two more extra players and increase the squad depth. That was a big focus for us.”

No one was getting too caught about the upcoming Connacht campaign, except maybe Saoirse Lally.

“We see this as game seven, no emotions attached to it at all, and hopefully we can go as far as we can and maybe even win out the All-Ireland!”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Mayo News (@themayonews)