Galway minor camogie side aim to end wait for All-Ireland title

The Tribeswomen recorded victories over Cork, Limerick and Tipperary during the group stages of the championship. Meanwhile, Kilkenny edged past Galway 1-8 to 1-7 in round four.

“Kilkenny are going for two in-a-row, they won it last year and they have a good few girls who won the schools final this year,” said Galway minor manager Fintan McNamara.

“They have a wealth of experience, we are underdogs, we’ve no problem with that, we are just concentrating on ourselves and getting ourselves right and we are focused on having a good go at them and see what happens.”

Galway secured their place into the All-Ireland final with a 2-18 to 3-11 victory over Tipperary. Leah Forde and Mary Brigid Cosgrove stood out in attack, scoring 1-15 between them in their side’s four point victory over their Munster rivals.

Sinead Feeney and Clodagh Burke who both featured on Athenry’s run to winning the All-Ireland championship against St Finbarr’s in January are key players for McNamara’s side, while Padraig Pearses’ Emma Barrett has also stepped up with crucial scores on Galway’s run to the All-Ireland final.

“I’m very happy with the campaign, we met at the start of the year, we set targets as a group. We have kept hitting those targets, we showed great character throughout the group stages. Every test that has been thrown at them so far, the girls have really stood up too.”

Kilkenny did enough to get past Cork in the other All-Ireland semi-final winning out 0-16 to 0-11, Ona Kennedy delivered an impressive performance hitting seven points for the Cats.

McNamara admitted that winning the All-Ireland final is his side’s goal this weekend but also stressed the importance of developing players onto the next level.

“Part of my role is to develop the girls for the next level to go up to the U-23’s with Cathal Murray. It’s also to get them used to winning, getting them into these big days and experiencing the days so when it does come further up the line that they are used to it.

“Development is a big part, I think we’ve shown that as a management team; we have 35 players on our panel and 34 players have got game time throughout the championship. When you get to a final, you want to win it. I do think it’s in the group, they are an extremely talented bunch of players, we just want them to perform on Sunday,” concluded McNamara.

Meanwhile, the Galway U-23s’ gallant come back against Tipperary at the Ragg on Sunday just failed when they lost out on a 2-14 to 2-13 scoreline.

Trailing by 2-8 to 0-6 at the interval and not at full strength, Galway had second half goals from Kerri O’Driscoll and Aoife Lawless, while Katie Lawless and Leah O’Halloran raised white flags, but the team’s gallant effort just fell short.

Galway must win their final two games against Dublin and Waterford to ensure that they make the knockout stages of the championship.