by Daragh Ó Conchúir
Both winning camps made no bones about using the pain of narrow defeats in last year’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Intermediate Championship semi-finals to help get them over the line in this year’s renewals at Cedral St Conleth’s Park.
It wasn’t that their valiant victims, Antrim and Down did not have their own motivational fuel in that type of department, having been relegated from senior fare 12 months ago.
That could be seen in the devastation upon the ranks of the vanquished but the winners take the spoils and set the narrative. And whatever about anyone’s ability to place more value on one stimulus over another, it is evident that Offaly and Kerry were driven by the hurt inflicted upon them by eventual winners Cork and Kilkenny respectively.
Having top-tier players and mentors is the highest imperative, of course, and in players of the match Mairéad Teehan and Patrice Diggin (pictured above), the victors had elite operators.
They had a handsome support cast too and while Diggin scored 1-7 in another outstanding performance in the green and gold, her long-time colleague, Jackie Horgan weighed in with a stupendous goal less than a minute after Diggin’s 40th minute penalty to rattle Down. Though the Mourne outfit battled hard, Kerry had established enough of a gap to see it home by 3-12 to 0-16.
“We’re absolutely over the moon,” said Diggin. “You can really take the disappointment from last year, when we lost the semi-final against Kilkenny. We were pipped in extra time by (two points) in the end and we were just going in to get back this year.
“Our aim was semi-final minimum and then to drive onto the next stage and thankfully we got over the line.
“We played (Offaly) at the start of the year and they hammered us off the field so they’re a serious outfit and we seen a bit of the match there beforehand. They’re a lovely team but we’ll enjoy the night and focus on Offaly again during the week.
“It’s savage. I know we keep harping on about it but look at the supporters out there today. They’re following us constant, they’re driving us on. Our families, the sacrifices they’re making as well as us. It’s for them as well as us. We really, really wanted to drive it on today and get back to Croke Park.
“At half-time we felt we were still at 50%. We knew there was a lot more in us. And look, you’ve to take the heat and everything into account and that was the same for the four teams today. But we knew there was a lot more in us and thankfully we came out in the second half.
“The penalty probably helped us on a bit and Jackie’s goal was flipping super. She came in there along the endline, and was a super goal and that really put us going again. It gave us a bit of a cushion because you weren’t safe there at the end. You were never safe until the final whistle was blown.”
John Madden is in his first season as manager, but he knew the impact that reverse had had on his charges.
“There’s a great bunch of girls there,” Madden declared. “We set this as our target, to get to the intermediate final up in Croke Park.
“We made the decision to play against the wind if we won the toss, and we knew then what we’d to do in the second half. It’s very strong, you wouldn’t think it on a fine, sunny day like today and in fairness the long-range frees from Patrice, she popped them over.
“We brought on three or four subs. Each one of them, you can turn to them and you know they’ll do a job for you. Each and every one of our players, they are all in my book, as high up as the next.”
Teehan had a shot well saved by Caitriona Graham in the first half but she made amends with a brilliant goal five minutes after the resumption to help Offaly turn a two-point interval lead into seven.
Her cousin, Grace Teehan kept the scoreboard ticking over from placed balls and play and that cushion proved crucial as a Róisín McCormick inspired Antrim brought it back to the minimum by the final whistle, 1-16 to 2-12.
“It was some tough battle,” said the emotional goalscorer (pictured below). “Just absolutely delighted. It was such a team performance there and it means so much to be going up to Croke Park in four weeks’ time with Offaly and with those girls. They’re just such a fantastic team. (I’m) proud to be part of it and delighted.
“Antrim are a very, very good team. We knew that coming into this. They bet us by two points at the beginning of the Championship so we knew we were going to be up against it. But we knew if we could just get a performance and work as hard as we could, we were in with a chance.
“When we played them in the first round of the Championship they got ahead of us just after half-time so we were very conscious of that and trying to get out (strongly), to protect the lead.
“(With the goal) I was trying to make up for the one I missed in the first half, but all the scores were hard come by. So it was great to get them.”
Manager David Sullivan referred to harbouring bitter disappointment about last year’s loss, as they felt it was a game they should have won. Perhaps the lessons from their two-point loss to Antrim in the group stages were even more important, however.
“We fully expected to win,” Sullivan asserted. “We didn’t come up here to take part. We went to Antrim earlier in the season and gave them far too much respect and at one stage they were 11 points up on us.
“In that game we had a decision to make. We were either going to fight or we were going to be annihilated and our season could have been in ruins after it but in fairness, we got it back level that day and the key was we pushed up 15 on 15 in the last 15 minutes. We knew when we did that, when we went at them we could cause them trouble.
“Going with the sweeper just didn’t suit us and they had too many good hurlers that could outplay the sweeper and spray the ball left and right. We took huge learnings from that game in Antrim and as soon as the draw was made, we knew we would be going 15 on 15.
“We drummed it into the girls all week, ‘Just win your individual battle’… I think we won nine or ten positions and I don’t think the scoreboard does us justice. Antrim hung in there at times but I thought the start of the second half, end of the first half, we were really, really good.
“We probably should have been out of sight at half-time, we missed a penalty, it went over the bar, Mairéad’s shot was stopped, we had a few wides. We knew we’d left a lot behind us but we just said, ‘Don’t lose the second half by more than two points and we’re in an All-Ireland final,’ and Mairéad’s goal was the perfect tonic. It gave us that breathing room.”
