Minor Camogie Championship Match Report

Minor Camogie Championship Match Report

1st round of the Championship Away to Ballinteer

Final Score Harps 3-07 BSJ 4-02

Our minor camogie ladies took to the pitch early on a scorching hot Sunday morning to open their first championship match. .Our minor team is a very young team made up almost entirely of first year minors, other than 3 girls. .  Having to travel to Marlay Park for a 10.30 start the girls started slow. The weather was blisteringly hot, and we had to ask for water breaks, winning the first ball it wasunfortunately put wide, and this continued right up to the first water break, where we had 8 wides!! Ballinteer were much more accurate with their shooting and with only 4 attempts on our goals in this quarter they put 3 scores up. We regrouped and told the girls that they needed to be more aggressive on the ball, but the girls in the main were ring rusty throughout this half. We were down on a score line of 4-02- 0-02….and it looked like this wasn’t going to be the girls day. But with a bit of encouragement from the side line we told the girls that they needed to move it up a gear. In true blue style a beautiful ball was put into our forward line and Alex Ward won the ball and buried it in the Ballinteer net, this seemed to settle the girls, and suddenly the fight back began. We got on top and in a thrilling match that saw scores from 6 of our players, including scores from the 2 Beggs sisters, Leah and Rebecca,playing minor camogie together for the first time!

We defended our end well when Ballinteer put pressure back on,and saw some lovely clearances from Tilly Frazer in the backline and Keela Feehily our goalie. There were some beautiful set pieces from  both Aoife Donohue and Mia Rice and as usual the work rate from our Captain Hannah McGinnis in the middle of the park was fantastic. As the match neared the end  the Harps girls were going from strength to strength. As with all championship matches it was a tough physical contest, but the girls pulled the win out of the bag and when the ref blew the final whistle, we had secured our first win the minor championship on a score line of 3-07 – 4-02! In true gritty Harps fashion, they pulled this one out of the fire!! Well done to all the girls, next round is a home fixture v Clontarf.