Cork ladies footballers turn to youth for league opener at home to Galway

It's well in the distance but the Cork ladies footballers aim for All-Ireland glory gets underway on Sunday.

They take on Galway in the opening round of the Lidl NFL at Mallow, throw-in 2pm.

While manager Shane Ronayne and his selectors won't be thinking about the All-Ireland at this stage he will be looking to test players and see who is going to put their hand up for a spot in the championship side come the summer.

Last season Cork were hit by several injuries during the league, losing Sarah and Rachel Leahy for the entire season, along with others like Maire O'Callaghan and Laura Fitzgerald picking up knocks and not being able to play as big a role as they would have liked.

Add in the frustration of the clash of games with camogie and it made for a difficult start to the year. After a campaign by players last season hopefully, those clashes are a thing of the past and dual stars like Hannah Leahy, Libby Coppinger, and Aoife Healy will get the chance to play both codes.

This is Shane's third season in charge of Cork and with a little bit of luck, they could have made the playoff stages of the league before they won the Münster Championship.

Eventually, they lost out to Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final, again where luck wasn't on their side as they hit the bar twice, but overall they were beaten by a better side on the day.

The previous year they lost out in the quarter-final so Shane will be hoping they follow the progress of the last two seasons and reach the decider this year.

For now, though all thoughts will be on Sunday and getting their first points on the board, against a difficult opponent.

A few familiar faces will be missing this year with goalkeeper Meabh O'Sullivan in Australia and Shane also confirmed that Eimear Meaney won't be part of the squad as she intends to go travelling as well.

Laura Fitzgerald has also stepped away for now as she battles to overcome a shoulder injury, along with a knee one, both picked up last season.

On the plus side, Sadhbh O'Leary is back in the panel as she returns from her travels. So joining the senior panel this year are Caoimhe Richmond, Katie O'Driscoll, Aine Hallahan, Clara Lynch, Molly Burke, Shauna Cronin, and Noelle O'Mahony, who have all been called up following impressive displays with their clubs and in some cases with the Cork minor panel last year.

REVIEW

Reflecting on last and looking forward to this season Shane said: "We made progress in some ways and then I suppose we didn't perform on the big day against Dublin. We've done a full review of everything we did, including a full review of the playing panel and management to see what we need to do better.

"We're very excited for the year ahead, we've had a very good preseason so far. We haven't a whole lot of football done as we're concentrating on our fitness levels and strength and conditioning to get stronger in this area.

"We're looking forward to the league, there will be lots of tough games and I'm sure lots of teams are in the same position as us - trying out new players.

"That's what we plan to do with the league, try out new players. It's a hard job to get to the league final, you have to win five or six games to be in with a chance, which is a tough ask in any division. So I think you need a bit of luck if you want to get to the league final.

Before you had a chance of maybe sneaking in there but our real concentration for the league is making sure by the time we get to the championship that we've got a very strong panel with lots of players who have to fight for jerseys."

Changes to the panel is something is something that happens every year and this season is no different for Shane.

"There's going to be some changes, there always is every year. Meabh O'Sullivan and Eimear Meaney are going travelling, and both had a great year last year.

"With Meabh gone we will have a new keeper and we have three on the panel at the moment. Sarah Murphy and Dearbhla Creed have been there since last year and they have been joined by Caoimhe Richmond this season.

"They're working very hard with Eric Barrett, our new goalkeeping coach, and we plan to get game time for all of them in the coming weeks. Meabh is a huge loss, but we just have to deal with it and it's time for someone else to step up, because that's going to be the way with any players who aren't there.

"Someone else has to step up. No one plays forever and I think every team is going to be affected by players not playing and not being available at the moment."

TRIBE

Turning his thoughts to Galway Shane is well aware of the task that lies ahead on Sunday.

"They have a new manager in, so I'm sure he's going to want to stamp his authority on Things. We don't know if they have any of their Kilkerrin-Clonberne players will be available after their recent All-Ireland club success.

"They were outstanding in the club championship and they have several players on the Galway panel.

I think it's a nice opening game, two teams who will go out to try and play good football before we face some of the more physical teams later on in the league.

"Four of our first five league games are at home, the only way is away to Kerry and that will be a tough one to win.

"So I think the first two home games are very important for us. Hopefully, we can come out with six points because, you know, I think that will be very important for us going forward in the league and maybe allows us a bit of time to experiment later on," concluded Shane.