St. Dominic’s no strangers to camogie finals

Getting the better of their great rivals, Athleague, makes St. Dominic’s a dangerous animal for Saturday’s Senior A camogie final, according to their manager, John Haughey.

Athleague had beaten St. Dominic’s in three of the last four finals, but a big semi-final performance in Knockcroghery turned the tables on Saturday week last, something Haughey hopes his side can use to their advantage next weekend.

“From a camogie point of view, it’s a fantastic final. It’s great to see a new team come along. Oran will present a different challenge to us. But the girls are feeling good about themselves. It was a big one for us to knock Athleague out in the semi-final.

“We’ve built momentum through the championship. If the truth be told, we were rocky enough at the start, but we’ve improved. We asked the girls for a buy-in and to try and get better as the games have gone on, and they’ve responded. There is more improvement in the team, and we’ll be looking for that one big performance on Saturday,” he said.

St. Dominic’s will be missing a few players this weekend, which is par for the course in the modern climate. With up to 11 dual players between camogie and ladies’ football, Haughey has been pleased with the co-operation between both codes this season.

“In fairness, the fixtures have been good this year. Maybe there was one weekend at the start when the ladies’ footballers had a game on the Friday and we had a game on the Sunday. But, in general, there was good co-operation between the two county boards.

“To think that a club can put out a ladies’ football team that can get to a county semi-final and be competing at the top end of the camogie championship for the last six seasons is a testament to the players’ durability, talent, and skills. They’re a committed, exceptional group of girls.

“Both teams might argue that they haven’t won enough because they’re batting off the other but there are swing and roundabouts. We concentrate on ball work because they do a lot of fitness work with Michael (O’Connor, ladies’ football manager). There would be a lot of communication between the two sides to make sure that there isn’t too much of a burden on girls. If he was doing a hard week’s training, we’d take it a bit easier.”

And to a prediction on Saturday?

“We’d be hopeful that the experience of previous finals will stand to the girls. The girls have massive belief. When you’re getting to county finals, you need that. To get over Athleague — a team that were in an All-Ireland final last year — you need that. They threw the kitchen sink at us, and to be able to respond the way we did was very pleasing from a management’s perspective.

“We know that there’s a massive task ahead of us but we have the confidence and belief in our own players that we’re capable of taking it on the day,” he concluded.