The women footballers of Castlebar Mitchels are on their way to the All-Ireland final. This afternoon at Josie Munnelly Park in Castlebar they prevailed over Kerry’s Castleisland Desmonds in the LGFA All-Ireland Intermediate Championship semi-final by 3-7 to 2-7.
Up until the second water break this was a tightly fought and cagey contest. Mitchels enjoyed the greater possession but their shooting wasn’t always on target – they hit 17 wides over the course of the game – and their Kerry opponents stuck doggedly with them up until the end of the third quarter.
Mitchels led by two (0-5 to 0-3) at half-time but the teams were tied at six points apiece when the second sos uisce was called. At that stage it looked as if the game’s cautious narrative would prevail up to the end. Instead, however, the match exploded into life in the final quarter.
The home team rattled in 3-1 in a four-minute spell at the start of the fourth quarter to shoot ten points clear. The goals came courtesy of Laura Brody, Niamh Hughes and Danielle Caldwell (pictured above in a cracking photo by James Killeen) while Anna Tuohy chipped in with a point.
That fusillade should have been enough to decide the contest there and then. In the event it was sufficient but only after Mitchels withstood a late fightback from the Kerry side, whose cause was helped when the home side lost Grainne Flynn to the sin bin with just over ten minutes to go.
A goal for Desmonds by Amy Curtin brought some life back into the contest with five minutes of normal time to go. With injury time looming, a second major for the visitors – this one notched by Julia Ann Twomey – cut Mitchels’ lead to four points and ensured there would be a nerve-ridden finale to the match.
Despite intense pressure, however, all Castlebar conceded after that was a single point, as they hung on to win by three to book their place in the All-Ireland final. There’s they’ll meet the winners of the other semi-final, which is between St Sylvester’s of Dublin and Kinawley Brian Borus of Fermanagh and which will be played tomorrow.
There are full match reports on today’s match on Ladies Football and in the Mayo Advertiser.
Highlights from the game are available from Stream Sport:
Highlights of @CastlebarLgfc's win over @desmondsladies1 in the @LadiesFootball @currentacc_ie All Ireland Intermediate Semi Final https://t.co/zmDqM2OVqC
— StreamSport.ie (@StreamsportI) January 22, 2022
James Killeen has some nice action shots from the game on Twitter (including the one at the top) which you’ll find here.
Congrats to Mitchels on their great win today and here’s hoping they’ll now go on and seal the deal in the All-Ireland final.
Well done to Mitchell’s Women.. Fantastic, congratulations to them.. And the Cherry on Top, they can celebrate Tonight. No Covid restrictions!
Huge result for the Mitchels ladies! They made heavy weather of it, having hit so many wides, but would have been gutted if they had been beaten. They really showed their mettle when Castleisland levelled the game going into the final water break, three goals in seven minutes won the game for them, although conceding two in the final stages almost brought the Kerry women back from the brink.
Great displays from Sullivan in midfield, Caldwell and McMenamon.
They’ll need to improve on the shooting if they want to win the final though.
As mentioned above, Mitchel’s ladies made hard work of it but hard work paid off in the end with excellent performances from Orla Conlon, Danielle Caldwell, Lisa MC Menamon, Catherine Sullivan, and Anna Tuohy. Grainne Flynn was missed when she had to take a sin bin but the Castlebar ladies stuck it out and now have a very big Day Out to look forward to.
The home crowd made a huge difference yesterday where support for the Mitchel’s was emmence and gave them a much needed boost as the teams emerged for the final quarter, triggering a blitz of scores.
Well done to all involved with Castlebar Mitchel’s ladies and men’s club and a mention to to the Kerry ladies who kept us all on our toes untill the final whistle.
They will meet with st Sylvesters the Dublin champions in the final.
Should play the final in three weeks time instead and have it on before the league game between ourselves and dublin
A quick word of thanks to the Mitchels mens club for their hosting of the game and giving us the full run of their facilities and venue. Both the warm up pitch and the match pitch were kept in great shape and no one else got to use them for the last 6 weeks bar the Ladies.
Both teams fed upstairs afterwards and Mary P would feed an army!