Senior Football Championship 2021 round 1

 Our senior ladies footballers got their championship off to a flying start with a comprehensive victory away against Aghada last Sunday afternoon. Our starting fifteen lined out as follows. In goal, Sarah Murphy. Full backs Aislinn O Connor, Trish O Sullivan and Laura Quirke. Half backs Emma Roche, Grace Kearney and Aoife O Riordan. Midfield Ava Barry and Lily Murray. Half forwards Eleanor Ahern, Jen Barry and Aoife Hurley. Full forwards Jen Cahill, Katie Quirke and Grace Culloty.

From the outset we started strongly and by the first water break we lead by 2-04 to 0-01. At that break, Ed stressed the need to keep the pressure on and we did just that to lead by 5-05 to 0-05 at half time. Qualification for the semi final stages of this competition could come down to score difference in a difficult group that includes Aghada, Inch Rovers, Fermoy and current All Ireland club champions Mourneabbey, so keeping up the pressure and intensity was vital in the second half.

We continued to keep the pressure on Aghada from the restart and we got some great scores with slick passing and running off the shoulder to support the player in possession. It was great to see some of the training drills coming to fruition during the game and unlike previous years when we might have taken our foot off of the pedal in the last quarter, that didn`t happen in this game as we kept the pressure on until the final whistle with Ed`s message about score difference hitting home. Girls ran themselves into the ground and we introduced 5 subs in the second half, with Alanna Broderick and Caoimhe Kielty making their senior championship debuts and looking right at home. Michelle Hartnett made a welcome return to the Rovers jersey in her first game since the senior B success in September 2019 after a couple of years down under. Leah Hallihan and Rebecca Walsh also made return appearances and all 5 contributed to a fabulous panel performance in the 9-11 to 0-14 win. Girls who didn`t get to play on Sunday will be disappointed but that shows the strength of this panel. There is a long season ahead with many twists and turns to come. Even though we finished the game with 13 players in the last 5 minutes due to an injury and a dubious yellow card, we outscored Aghada in that period by 3 points to 1!

Our next game is this Sunday September 26^th at home in Rathcormac at 1pm against Mourneabbey. Please come along and support the girls as they continue their journey in the senior championship 2021