Naomh Abán and Glanmire fly flag proudly for Cork ladies football in Munster

It was a good weekend for the two Cork sides in action in the AIB Munster Ladies Club Football Championship finals.

First Glanmire won the Senior B title and that was followed by Naomh Abán winning the intermediate championship after extra time.

Glanmire have junior and intermediate Munster and All-Ireland titles already in the trophy cabinet, so they were delighted to add another at senior level.

The only disappointment for them is the fact that there is no All-Ireland championship at this level so their season ended with this win on Saturday by 4-15 to 0-6 over Kilmurry/Ibrickane from Clare.

It was a far more dramatic day for Naomh Abán as they led by four points heading into injury time of their clash with Clounmacon/Moyvane from Kerry. But credit to the Kerry side, they hit 1-1 to take it to extra-time.

Naomh Abán regrouped, which wasn’t easy after those late blows, to keep their opponents scoreless in extra-time and added three points of their own to win by 2-11 to 2-8.

It was extra special for two people in particular, Ally McCarthy of Glanmire and Colleen Phelan of Naomh Abán as they had the honour of lifting the cups for their respective clubs.

Speaking afterwards Ally McCarthy said she was honoured to lift the cup on behalf of the team.

“It's great to have made the final, but even better to win it,” said Ally.

They opted to play against the wind in the first half and went in leading by 1-10 to 0-2, a huge step towards winning.

“I think playing against the wind stood to us. We knew that in the first half we needed to get those scores against the wind.

“That way when we came back out for the second half, we knew it would be an easier game. So luckily enough we were able to round up those scores against the wind which was quite strong.

I suppose just knowing that the wind then was behind us in the second half really kind of helped.

“I think the wins we have had has helped us cope with all sorts of games, including the conditions, and really developed us into the team that we are and we're just constantly trying to improve. This is another step of improving down the line and hopefully we'll be looking at a Senior A win in the future.”

HEART POUNDING

For Colleen Phelan, it was a far more nerve-wracking game, but she was full of praise of how her side coped with the late scores.

“Our hearts were pounding there the last few minutes of the game and it's kind of hard to process what happened,” said Colleen.

“We had a decision to make at that stage, then we could have said that the game was over, but instead we just got our thoughts together again and just reset for another game.

“All the girls are flying fit, and that definitely stood to us. We could see that they were tiring a small bit whereas we were ready to go again. So it was just a matter of resetting and getting back into it and thankfully we came out on top.

The last few weeks we've had games week after week, but we've a nice break now to celebrate this win. 

"I think we've three weeks off to get the bodies right and you know, get together again and we'll put a plan in place for the semi-final.”