Nerves of steel were required tonight as our Feile girls took on St James’s in a hugely competitive Championship semi-final.
Having won comfortably against this powerful Aldergrove squad earlier in the league campaign, our visitors had no intention of letting us have it easy this time round.
From the whistle, their coaches had them fired up and they quickly got in amongst our girls, disrupting our flow and snapping at our heels. It seems that our girls were on autopilot, having barely recovered from last week’s quarters and it took our newest squad member, U12 star Teresa Mellon to post the first score. Having nailed a perfect catch, the nippy little forward side-stepped her marker and dropped a perfect left peg point over the bar.
Thereafter, blows were traded consistently with two goals from Cara Lennon and a few converted frees from Rebecca Doyle (strangely missing her usually solid boot tonight), just edging the match at half time.
Aldergrove’s trio of Caitlin Taggart, Aoife Taggart and Nicole Jones, fresh from their superb Antrim performance at the weekend, tortured an injury weakened backline and as the game progressed, St Brigid’s were never allowed to settle, never being more then 2 or 3 points in front.
As the game drew to a close, it was clear that nothing would separate the teams and when Aldergrove netted with 3 minutes left on the clock, they took a 2 point the lead for the first time in the game. With a huge effort from all our girls and some slick passing, Caitlin Fryers was freed up to run the line and net superbly to steal the lead back. Another goal and and a few shared singles brought St Brigid’s over the line 4-10 to 4-5, bruised, but still standing.
Congratulations to John Jones and his superbly drilled St James’s squad tonight who ran us to the wire. Lots of lessons to be learned from tonight as we face St Paul’s in next Tuesday’s final, venue to be confirmed.
Big backslap tonight to Cara Lennon, Caitlin Fryers, Teresa Mellon and Rosa McCormack who were the stand out performances on the squad tonight.
See you next Tuesday for the Championship decider!
