Perseverance finally paid off for Éire Óg last year

After years of trying, Éire Óg ladies footballers finally scaled the peaks in 2025.

The Muskerry side, after four final defeats on the bounce, defeated Aghada in the Cork Credit Unions Senior A Football Championship final.

Éire Óg won after a replay that went all the way to extra-time. The success sparked wild celebrations from the winning camp.

While it’s a very young group, Aoife Rodgers is most certainly an experienced campaigner. She has been more or less part of the panel since the club was formed in 2003.

“It meant the world to everyone to finally get over the line,” she says.

“I suppose to the girls who have been there since we started playing at senior level and to the girls who came in over the last few years, it just really did mean the world and we're just delighted now with what we have achieved.

“There’s a bit of perseverance knowing that we were so close over the last few years. Like when I started out, we never thought we could get to this level. Winning the senior county is the holy grail.

“It’s great now to finally get there and to have that medal in the back pocket.” 

Éire Óg might have felt that they were never destined to reach the very top after losing four deciders on the trot prior to last year. Now they have finally won it, just how tough was it to keep coming back?

“Those winter months when you finish up around October time and you’re looking at another year of training, I suppose I’m at the stage of my career where I’m at the latter end of it. 

"So you have that discussion with yourself where you don’t know if you’ll be able to keep going or not. Luckily, I have four very good cheerleaders that motivate me to keep going. 

“Resilience makes you tougher as a group. It makes you closer as a group. I’m very good friends with a lot of the girls in the group, everyone gets on. It's a very tight-knit panel. I think when that’s the case, you want to win for one another. That’s not something you can instill in a team.

“That’s something that comes over the years, I suppose. That’s probably what got us over the line in the end.

“Honestly, I think this is only the start. We’ve had an extremely successful year as a club in 2025. We won the minor, U21 and the senior."

Éire Óg LGFA are still relatively young given they were only formed 23 years ago based on successes at Sciath na Scol level in Ovens and Farran National Schools.

“Junior C was the first final we won, I was 17 at the time,” Rodgers said.

“It feels like a lifetime ago. I would say that we’ve been on an upward trajectory since then. And we just kept building and kept at it. 

"Obviously, we’ve had to be extremely resilient over the last few years, given that we lost the four previous finals. At the end of the day, the hard work paid off."