TG4 All-Ireland Junior Championship Final:
MOLLY McGloin is only 22-years-old but the Fermanagh defender will make her third All-Ireland final appearance when she lines out for her county in Sunday’s TG4 All-Ireland Junior Championship Final.
This will be Fermanagh’s third final in four years with a defeat in 2019 and victory in 2020 and McGloin, who will lead her side out onto the hallowed turf of Croke Park on Sunday morning for the 11.45am throw-in, has been at the heart of the Erne defence for them all.
To reach three finals in four years is impressive, but it also is evident of the difficult that faces junior teams when they make the step up to intermediate and are unable to stay there. Fermanagh have had many ups and downs in the last half a dozen years – they won the junior title in 2017 and with it promotion to intermediate for 2018 but they were relegated back to junior for 2019. They reached the final but lost to Louth, came back in an interrupted 2020 to win it but found themselves relegated once again last year after a difficult campaign. Now they are back in another final with another chance of going back up.
McGloin recognises that all that moving up and down is not ideal but she feels that if they beat Antrim on Sunday and go back up again to intermediate for next year they can compete as they were not that far off the mark last year but just results ultimately did not go their way.
“Last year I thought we were unlucky with how the results went against us. We were competitive but we came out on the wrong end of the result and found ourselves back down to junior. If we come out on top against Antrim, I’m really looking forward to playing intermediate football again because I feel we can compete there if we want to improve and build we need to be playing at that level.
“Meath have shown over the last couple of years what you can achieve. They were in intermediate for a long time, then they won that, then they won the senior and they are on the verge of winning another one. That gives every team a lot of belief and confidence.”
The Newtownbutler club player despite only making her senior debut back in 2019 has become one of the team’s leaders and having players like her step up into that role particularly this year has no doubt helped Fermanagh get to where they are after a significant player turnover from last year and new management team including James Daly and Caoimhe Morgan.
“It’s been a whirlwind few years where we have been in junior, moved up to intermediate and came back down again,” she said.
“We looked at this year as being a transition year and a learning year and we have come so far since the start of the year and even in the last few months. We have learned and progressed with each game we have played.
“In the league we were finding our feet, we reached the semi-finals and lost to Limerick when we were in a good position and that was very disappointing but it drove us on and when we met them again in the championship semi-finals we were determined not to let the same thing happen again and we wanted revenge.
“This is the fourth time this year we will meet and they have always been tight and I know Sunday will be another battle. Antrim are very strong, they move the ball well and they are very good up front, but we are full of belief and I think we can play to our full potential we can get over the line. It’s not going to be easy but we are going in believing we can do it.”
