‘I can’t leave the house without getting advice off mum and dad, which is great because they’ve been through it’
BY DAIRE WALSH
WHEN Eadestown’s Ruth Sargent made her Kildare senior debut in a Lidl NFL Division 3 game against Down at St Conleth’s Park, Newbridge on January 22, 2023, she became the latest member of her family to represent the Lilywhites in the adult ranks of inter-county football.
In addition to her father Sean lining out in goal for the county in the 1980s and the early part of the following decade, Ruth’s mother Barbara was the first-ever captain of the Kildare ladies football team when they entered competitive action in 1993.
Twelve months before Ruth made a breakthrough onto her own Lilies panel, her brother Jack also made his competitive bow as a Kildare senior footballer in a league opener against Kerry in Newbridge. The latter might well be joined by another member of the Sargent clan in future years as younger sibling Daniel was player of the match when the Kildare U16s captured the Gerry Reilly Cup earlier this year.
“My mum Barbara, she has actually been my coach since U6s in the club and she’s part of our management with the Eadestown ladies as well. She has been my coach the whole way up, so I wouldn’t really know football without her. I can’t leave the house without getting advice off Mum and Dad, which is great because they’ve been through it,” acknowledged Sargent, whose sister Emma has also donned the Kildare jersey in the past.
“It runs in the family, which is nice. We have a competitive environment, but I like that. Jack would have joined Kildare and in his first year probably wouldn’t have been starting. He was coming on, but it was great to see over the years how he is very committed to it. Then getting his starting position in last year and having a great year playing with Kildare.
“He is enjoying it, which is nice to see, but it definitely would have pushed me on as well. Obviously I would have gone to a good few matches and I enjoyed going watching the matches. It’s great to not only play, but to get out and watch everyone else play as well. You learn a lot from it.”
Yet while Gaelic football is very much in their blood, Ruth and Jack both took an active part in a multi-discipline sport during their formative years as teenagers in Eadestown.
Comprising running, swimming, horse riding and shooting, tetrathlon is a team competition that is primarily organised by pony clubs for its members.
It is through the Kildare Hunt Pony Club that Sargent was introduced to that and having previously competed in national showjumping events, she took to this new sporting pursuit with considerable aplomb.
“Jack would have done it before me and I joined when I would have been in primary school at the age of 11 or 12. Then I would have competed with that both in Ireland and in England as well. We would have had a trip over to England every June bank holiday in the summer to compete against the teams in England, Wales, Scotland.
“I would have been big into the tetrathlon and then I think I stopped tetrathlon at 17 or 18. Then I just decided to focus on football. I thought it was the sport for me and I probably didn’t really have enough time to carry on doing them all. I picked football and stuck with that.”
Caoimhe O’Connor of TU Dublin in action against Ruth Sargent of DCU Dóchas Éireann during the 2024 Ladies HEC O’Connor Cup semi-final at MTU Cork (Photo by Stephen Marken/Sportsfile)
Electing to focus solely on Gaelic football has certainly paid dividends for Sargent, given the level of success she has enjoyed with her club, county and college teams in the past few years. Since breaking onto the Kildare panel at the beginning of 2023, she has garnered Division 2 and Division 3 titles in the Lidl National Football League, a TG4 Leinster Intermediate Football Championship and – most crucially of all – a TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Football Championship.
Sargent has also claimed back-to-back O’Connor Cup triumphs with DCU – where she is currently studying primary school teaching – while the start of last month saw her being part of an Eadestown side that secured a fifth consecutive Kildare LGFA senior club championship crown with a final victory over St Laurence’s.
Despite still being just 20 years of age, Sargent has been a starter for all five deciders that Eadestown have won during this period.
“I would have joined the Eadestown ladies senior team when I was 16. That was back in 2020. My first two years with the senior team, I would have been in the full-forward line and then I moved back to the centre-back position. It’s my position now, but it has been crazy.
“I probably won’t even realise until a few years to come how much of an achievement it is. It has just been great.”
Having firmly established themselves as the dominant force within their county, Sargent and her team-mates also had a desire to make waves on the provincial front in 2024. After coming up short in previous seasons, this year has seen Eadestown making it all the way to an AIB Leinster club final courtesy of triumphs at the expense of Dunshaughlin Royal Gaels and Tinahely in recent weeks.
Awaiting them in a showpiece affair at Glenisk O’Connor Park in Tullamore tomorrow (throw-in 1pm) is a Kilmacud Crokes side that are in search of a third successive AIB Leinster senior club title. Even though she has climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand in Croke Park for her county on more than one occasion in the past 18 months, Sargent believes that winning a provincial final with her club would be up there as one of her best achievements to date as a ladies footballer.
“It would definitely be huge and I think it would definitely top the achievements because obviously Eadestown is where I’ve grown up. It’s where I’ve learnt to play football. We know Kilmacud are a great outfit and obviously they’ve been there before,” Sargent added.
“It would just be great, not only for our team, but for the management. For the fans, the whole community who have just followed us over the years and have been so supportive to us. Not only huge for myself and all the individuals, but for the team and just the whole community of Eadestown. It would just be massive.”
Ruth Sargent during the 2023 TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Intermediate Football Championship Final against Clare (Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile)
