Galway ladies football clubs head to London for clashes with exiles

STEPHEN GLENNON

THE ladies footballers of Caltra Cuans and Claregalway will hope to continue their winning ways when they both travel to London for their respective All-Ireland quarter-final ties in Ruislip this weekend.

Connacht intermediate champions Caltra Cuans – who face Parnells on Sunday morning (11:30am) – have been on an amazing run in recent times, winning the All-Ireland junior title last year and driving to county and provincial success in the intermediate ranks this year.

“Really, this is our third year of success since I took them over in 2009,” says Caltra Cuans manager Gabriel Naughton. “We won the junior ‘B’ the first year, then we won the junior ‘A’ last year – including the All-Ireland – and we have added the county and Connacht intermediate titles this year.

“Believe or not, though, we were not going all that well early on in the year, but when we reached the county semi-final, the hunger and appetite returned and we then beat Milltown in the semi-final. We were still the underdogs heading into the final against Kilkerrin/Clonberne because they were an established intermediate team. But we turned them over, even though it was tight enough in the finish. We scored a point in injury-time to win it.”

Caltra followed this up with emphatic victories over Cill Chomain of Mayo (2-11 to 1-7) and Drumcliffe of Sligo (3-13 to 2-8) in the Connacht semi-final and decider respectively. Those victories have already distinguished them as serious All-Ireland contenders.

“We will just take it one game at a time and hopefully we will not trip up over there in London,” says Naughton. “If we win, we will be playing the All-Ireland semi-final against the Ulster champions the following week and we could end up playing the team (St. Enda’s of Omagh) we played in the junior All-Ireland final. So, that would be interesting.” 

That said, the trip to London will pose its own problems – it is the proverbial banana skin – but Naughton is still confident, believing his Caltra Cuans outfit is a nicely balanced side. “We still have eight or nine minors in our first 15 and a couple of those would be U-16,” continues the Caltra boss.

“Obviously, collectively, they are a year older than they were last year and you saw what happened last year. They took great experience from that journey [to All-Ireland success].

“Also, we don’t have any star player as such. We are very balanced and on different days, different girls can stand up and deliver. So, it would be grossly unfair to name half a dozen players when really we have players who can do it for us all throughout the team.”

However, there is the form book to go by and in this respect Galway dual player Sarah Noone has been most impressive at centre-back, as has Aine Tully on the flank. Both have the wonderful ability to break forward and take their scores.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.