*The victorious St Joseph’s Spanish Point panel and management.
St. Joseph’s, Spanish Point are celebrating the ending of a twenty nine year wait for Munster Colleges ladies A football championship honours.
St Joseph’s Spanish Point 4-12
Loreto SS Clonmel 3-13
Venue: Banteer
Having last won the provincial title in 1997, the West Clare school overcame Mercy Clonmel on Saturday afternoon.
This was a strong team performance in which Ellie Hanrahan with 2-7, Aoife Martin, Abbie Gallagher, Simone Considine and Abi Kelly were particularly prominent.
Kilmurry Ibrickane’e Hanrahan was in sparkling form and her superb tally of 2-7 was key to this victory
The victory was achieved despite a couple of setbacks over the course of the hour.
Mercy, Clonmel carried the favourites tag into this final and they got off to a dream start. They won possession from the throw in and the move ended with a goal and they quickly followed this with a point.
The West Clare side wasn’t rattled and they hit back impressively firing home 2-2 to open a four point lead.
The new champions led 3-6 to 1-2 as the game moved inside the final ten minutes of the opening half when they were dealt another blow as joint team captain Aoibheann Ryan was sent to the sin bin. Clonmel finished the half strongly and when the half time whistle sounded the scoreline was 3-6 to 1-6 in favour of the Spanish Point outfit, their goals having come from Ellie Hanrahan (2) and Abi Kelly.
Straight from the resumption the winners struck for their fourth goal which came from Alisha Ryan putting her side nine points clear.
Shortly after Aoibheann Ryan had returned to action early in the second half the new Munster champions were dealt another blow when Alisha Ryan was shown a yellow card.
Clonmel weren’t going to give up and from here to the finish they piled on the pressure and gradually reduced the lead.
Despite being down a player, for another ten minutes Spanish Point continued to put together some great moved and when they final whistle sounded they were two points to the good, sparking off great celebrations amongst players, management and their followers.
They are now through to the All-Ireland semi-finals and they will play Moate in a couple of weeks time.
St. Josephs Spanish Point; Ellie Cushen; Emma Talty, Aoife Martin, Leah Darcy; Aine O’Keeffe, Simone Considine (0-2), Abbie Galagher (0-1); Abi Kelly (1-1) Ide O’Connor; Alisha Ryan (1-0), Ellie Hanrahan (2-7), Aoibhinn Ryan (0-1);Michaea Sexton, Emily Shannon, Kayla Talty-Darcy
Sub; Emma Griffin for E. Shannon
