Athlone Town’s latest signing Laurie Ryan is relishing the prospect of competing in the Women’s National League for the first time after a chance encounter saw the Ennis native rekindle her zeal for soccer in a whirlwind few weeks.
Injury may limit the involvement of Grainne Nolan as Clare begin their TG4 All-Ireland intermediate ladies football championship on Sunday but she is determined to play a part as renew rivalry with Kildare.
Clare ladies senior football champions, Banner, bowed out of the Munster title race when they suffered a one point loss to their Tipperary counterparts, Cahir, in a thrilling contest at St. Michael’s Park in Kilmihil on Friday night.
If clinching an 11th senior ladies football crown in just 13 seasons wasn’t sweet enough, the fact that Banner Ladies Captain Grainne Nolan was lifting the coveted cup for the first time certainly piped the celebratory icing on the cake in Doonbeg on Sunday.
It’s as you were for a new decade, just as it was in 2010 at the same venue when familiar foes Banner Ladies and West Clare Gaels locked horns.
Normal service was resumed on Sunday evening in a Banner Ladies backlash that sent reverberations around the county and beyond following a commanding final victory over West Clare Gaels in Shanahan McNamara Park in Doonbeg.
Louise Henchy is one of nine players who were in the Banner ladies panel which won the Clare senior ladies title for the first time in 2008.
For West Clare captain Caoimhe Harvey, her three sisters Ciara, Shanua and Grainne and the rest of the panel Sunday’s Clare ladies football final will be an emotional occasion.
Just as West Clare manager Michael Carmody’s name is synonymous in football circles in the West Clare penninsula, so is the name of Banner Ladies manager J.J. O’Dea throughout North Clare.
Banner ladies are one step away from another Clare ladies senior football title.