By John Fallon
ARMAGH manager Gregory McGonigle said they would not be getting carried away despite an impressive 4-10 to 1-9 win away to Cork in their opening TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Championship.
“It is back to the drawing board in the morning, recover well and keep our feet on the ground,” he said.
Aimee Mackin scored a first half hat-trick with Caoimhe McNally sealing the win with a late goal against a Cork side who did not recover from a poor start.
“We definitely left ourselves with too much to do but we had our chances in the second half,” said manager Joe Carroll. “We created two goal chances and didn’t take either one of them.”
Dublin joint manager Paul Casey said the ability to get goals at key moments was central to them beginning the defence of their TG4 All-Ireland title with a win over Mayo in Castlebar.
Two goals from Niamh Hetherton and one from Kate Sullivan helped Dublin to a 3-12 to 0-12 victory, having led by 1-5 to 0-6 at the interval.
“We’re delighted to get the win. Obviously, tough trip coming down here to Castlebar,” said Casey.
“Thankfully, we were able to kick on in the second half, got goals when it mattered at crucial times. We were able to kind of compound them with a couple of key scores.”
Mayo manager Diane O’Hora agreed. “Goals win games. A lot could have looked different if we had put that chance away in the first few minutes.
“Those opportunities have got to be nailed and if they’re not, it’s something we need to work on,” said O’Hora.
Kerry manager Mark Bourke said they learned a lot from their Munster championship clash with Tipperary which served them well as they opened the championship with an emphatic 2-16 to 0-4 win over a disappointing Tipp side.
“We had better learnings than when we played Tipperary five weeks ago,” said Bourke. “We turned over a lot of ball then and we’re getting used to set defences now. We worked a lot on it and did a lot of video on their defence and their kickouts. I’m just happy that we got the result today.”
Tipperary never got going despite a good Munster campaign and manager David Power said they never recovered from Kerry’s blistering start with Siofra O’Shea and Anna Galvin hitting the net as they built a 2-9 to 0-1 lead despite playing against the wind.
“We kept at it and showed fight in the second half but Kerry really punished us badly in the first twenty minutes of the first half and we never really recovered from that,” said Power.
Galway produced a strong second half display with the wind behind them to oust Meath by 2-21 to 1-9 in Bective, with Róisín Leonard and Eva Noone getting the goals, and manager Daniel Moynihan said he was pleased with how they pushed on.
“The two goals in the second half definitely were a massive plus for us because it took a little bit of pressure off us and I thought we expressed ourselves a lot better then after that on the football field.”
Meath did not build on an early Orla Finnegan goal and were level at the break and manager Wayne Freeman said they knew they were up against it then.
“They probably dealt with the wind a little bit better than we did. Although five minutes into the second half we were two up. We actually put ourselves in a really good position to battle it out. We knew obviously at half-time with the score being level it was going to be a challenge to try and win the game playing into the conditions.”
Meanwhile, in the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate championship, Westmeath, Clare and Leitrim all through to home quarter finals after victories at the weekend.
Results:
TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship
Group 1: Armagh 4-10 Cork 1-9
Group 2: Kerry 2-16 Tipperary 0-4
Group 3: Dublin 3-12 Mayo 0-12
Group 4: Galway 2-21 Meath 1-9
TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Championship
Group 1: Down 5-13 Cavan 0-8
Group 2: Westmeath 3-12 Louth 3-9
Group 3: Clare 1-11 Laois 1-10
Group 4: Leitrim 4-12 Fermanagh 1-13
TG4 All-Ireland Junior Championship
Group A:
Derry 2-17 Antrim 1-12
Offaly 1-22 Longford 3-2
