Hurling & Camogie

Derry make it two out of two with win over Kildare

Cork’s Katie O'Mahoney with Elyse Jamieson Murphy of Dublin during Cork's win in the Glen Dimplex Senior All-Ireland Camogie Championship Picture: Evan Treacy/Inpho
Cork’s Katie O'Mahoney with Elyse Jamieson Murphy of Dublin during Cork's win in the Glen Dimplex Senior All-Ireland Camogie Championship Picture: Evan Treacy/Inpho Cork’s Katie O'Mahoney with Elyse Jamieson Murphy of Dublin during Cork's win in the Glen Dimplex Senior All-Ireland Camogie Championship Picture: Evan Treacy/Inpho

Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Intermediate championship Group Two: Kildare 1-8 Derry 1-14

LAST week Áine McAllister landed 0-10 points in Derry’s victory over Meath at Swatragh. The Ballinascreen free-taker was unavailable for her county’s trip to Kildare on Saturday due to a family occasion, but Derry improvised to return with a second victory and go top of the Group Two and it was a more comfortable victory than the six-points margin suggests.

Derry had a great first half in Hawkfield playing against breeze. They were very disciplined at the back with defence shutting out the home side, so that they turned around at half-time with a 1-5 to 0-2 lead.

It should have been game over at that point and to a certain extent it was. But Derry overplayed the ball during the second half and lost it too often with a pass that wasn’t needed. Having said that there was little to no chance that they would surrender their half-time advantage.

Dervla O’Kane and Rachel Downey covered a lot of ground at midfield and Therese Mellon was always a threat up front while Máiréad McNicholl took over free taking duties in the absence of McAllister and put her team on the front foot from the start.

Róisín Forde and Emer Reilly emerged as a threat for Kildare during the second half, but it came too late to save Kildare. Derry were creating a lot more chances throughout and should have had more scores on the board.

McNicholl opened the game with two points, the first from a free. Although Deirbhile Byrnes pulled a score back for Kildare, the Mellon cousins put Derry firmly in control of the tie around the 10th minute.

Sinéad’s point was quickly followed by a goal from Therese who then added a point on 20 minutes. Aoife Shaw and Emer Reilly swopped points just before the break and Derry would have been very happy with a lead of six points with the wind at the backs in the second half.

That lead expanded at the start of the second half with points from McNicholl and Therese Mellon before Ciara Egan’s goal gave the home side some hope.

However, Derry hit back with two points each for McNicholl and Shannon O’Connor and a Rebecca Bradley score to lead by 1-12 to 1-4 with 10 minutes to go.

Róisín Forde hit three of the last five points and Claire Egan another, but there was still no danger to Derry returning north with the victory secured.

Meanwhile, there were surprise results in the other two games in the group with last year’s beaten finalists Kilkenny falling to a 0-13 to 1-5 defeat in Cork while Meath suffered defeat at home to newly-promoted Wexford.

Cork led by 0-5 to 0-2 at half-time and had moved to 0-8 to 0-3 by the 40th minute before a goal from Hannah Scott closed the gap. But Cork remained the dominant side and pulled clear once more.

Derry’s next game is away to Kilkenny on Saturday.

Galway look set to top Group One after convincingly beating Westmeath by 1-15 to 0-11, the goal coming from Cora Kenny. Kerry picked up their second narrow victory of the campaign and Dublin won in Laois.

Derry: N Gribben; R Kirkpatrick, M Mooney, M Kerr; S O'Doherty, G McNicholl, R Bradley (0-1); D O'Kane (0-1), R Downey; A Ní Chaiside, M McNicholl (0-6, 0-5 frees), S Mellon (0-1); S O'Connor (0-2), A Shaw (0-1), T Mellon (1-2)

Subs: C Glass for R Kirkpatrick (42), Á Magill for S Mellon (48), R Cassidy for R Downey (50), M Rafferty for M McNicholl (55).

Kildare: E Sterling; N Malcolmson, M Doyle, K Perkins; S Mulligan, E Barry, E Morgan; D Byrnes (0-1), G Keegan; A Stynes, R Forde (0-5, 0-4 frees), E Reilly (0-1); E Kielty, L Sutton, C Egan (1-1).

Subs: G Noone for K Perkins, N Hegarty for A Stynes, N Jenkins for G Keegan.

Glen Dimplex Senior Championship

SEEDED team Tipperary may not qualify from Group One of the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior championship after falling to Waterford in the Semple Stadium opener on Sunday.

Tipp have yet to win a game in the competition after three rounds and still have to face the other seeded team Cork as well as Wexford in the final two rounds later in the month.

They were in trouble from early on with Beth Carton pointing twice in the opening five minutes and helping to open up a 0-6 to 0-1 lead by the end of the first quarter.

Tipperary hit three points in three minutes then before Abby Flynn fired in a 20th minute goal for Waterford and that score was the difference between the teams at half time, 1-7 to 0-7.

Waterford hit the opening three points of the second half, two of them from Carton and were then able to keep a six points’ cushion between the teams for the rest of the half.

Meanwhile, Cork are well clear at the top of the group, but their game with Dublin didn’t follow a regular pattern.

Cork were the only scorers in the first quarter, a goal from Katrina Mackey putting them 1-2 ahead. But then Dublin took over with seven points before half time and two after.

However, after 23 minutes without a score, Amy O’Connor pointed a free for Cork and they went on to hit a further 1-7 without reply to win for the third weekend in a row. Mackey scored her second goal in the 49th minute.

Meanwhile a late point from Ciara O’Connor saw Division Two league winners Wexford snatch a 1-9 to 0-11 victory over Clare in Sixmilebridge, a significant result for the winners who lost by 18 points to Waterford a week ago.  

Joanne Dillon’s 24th minute goal was crucial to the result as it saw the teams go in level at the break 0-6 to 1-3 and they hit the opening four points of the second half.

Clare however drew level by registering five of the next six points. But the O’Connor siblings combined for Claire to shoot the winner in the fifth minute of injury time. 

Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Premier Junior Championship

Tipperary went five points clear with five minutes left on the clock, but Clare hit back with a point followed by a goal and had the momentum to rescue a draw at the Ragg.

That result means that Cavan stay clear at the top of the table with a visit to Mayo on 18th June.

Mayo gave Waterford a good run in the WIT arena coming from 2-3 to 0-3 down at the break to reduce the gap to a single point with four minutes on the clock. However they just couldn’t close the deal.

RESULTS

Glen Dimplex Senior Championship

Group One

Clare 0-11 Wexford 1-9

Dublin 0-9 Cork 2-10

Tipperary 0-13 Waterford 1-16

Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Intermediate Championship

Group One

Westmeath 0-11 Galway 1-15

Carlow 2-6 Kerry 0-14

Laois 1-10 Dublin 1-14

Group Two

Cork 0-13 Kilkenny 1-5

Kildare 1-8 Derry 1-14

Meath 1-12 Wexford 3-8

Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Premier Junior Championship

Group Two

Waterford 2-5 Mayo 0-10

Tipperary 1-14 Clare 2-11