Cork's ladies footballers hope to go one better in Senior B Munster championship

Cork will be hoping to go one better than last year as they start their Munster Ladies Football Senior B Championship on Saturday.

They start their campaign away to Kerry, at Legion GAA Club, Killarney, with a 6.30pm throw-in.

That will be followed by home games against Clare and Limerick as they bid to return to the Munster decider, where they lost to the latter last season.

The main pity about their first game is the fact that Cork face Kerry in the Senior A decider on the same day at Cloughduv at 2pm, and it would have been better had this been a double-header.

With Kerry having home advantage in the Senior B game it would have meant them giving that up most likely for that to happen and it’s hard to blame them for not doing so, but it means that not too many Cork fans are likely to make the trip to Kerry for the game.

Brian Leamy is their manager this season and has been involved with Cork sides before taking over again this year. He is looking forward to the challenge ahead but knows how difficult it will be, especially as they face Clare and Limerick’s first teams in this championship.

“Every team is going to be heard this at this level,” said Leamy, “Kerry will be looking to develop players as well like ourselves, we have a good panel there that want to develop.

“So we’re looking forward to it, that’s what we want to do, get up and play games. We’ve played a lot of challenge games so all we want to do is get going now.”

Playing at B level has some drawbacks as there is no league and Leamy had to try and get challenge games to get them championship ready.

But that was not easy to do for several reasons.

“It’s not easy to get challenge games, you can’t play the likes of Kerry, Limerick, and Clare as we are playing them in the championship, and we did try others but they were involved in the league.

“So we’ve played a few minor sides and the Skibbereen Community School team that won the All-Ireland championship, so it was great to get them games but it is very hard to get challenge games.

“We’ve played a few in-house games between ourselves, 15 v 15 which were competitive but there is nothing like a championship game.”

Grace Murphy is captain of the Cork team this year and the Naomh Aban star will be hoping for a bit of revenge for that loss to Limerick.

“Definitely, there’s a lot of the same girls in there and it was a very tough loss that day. I think we left stuff behind that day and it was a game that we could have won if we had our head screwed on so hopefully if we get there again this year we can come out on top,” said Grace.

“It would be great to start off with a win, but we know how tough it will be away to Kerry. But if we can get off to a good start then it puts us in with a great chance of reaching the Munster final.

“We have two home matches then that you would hope to be doing well in but it’s a tough championship to win. I think we’re a very good team and everyone puts 100% into every single training session, there’s a huge commitment this year.

“I think there’s a great buzz around the panel. Like Brian said, we have had in-house games and each one is very competitive.

“There’s no places on the team that are secured yet. So I think everyone’s driving it on,” concluded Grace.