By Niall Gartland

ARMAGH Minor Ladies swatted aside Longford with consumate ease in Saturday’s All-Ireland C Championship final against Longford, but manager Stephen Gollogly points out that their five star performance was the end result of nine months of hard work.

The Orchard girls ran out 4-16 to 0-9 victors in a one-sided contest at Clones with Moya McGrane, Jessica McCreesh, Nicole O’Reilly and Caoimhe Gollogly (daughter of the team manager) all finding the net. Lily McBennett, whose father Declan is the team’s defensive coach, also weighed in with seven points on a red-letter day for Armagh.

Speaking this week, manager Stephen Gollogly, a native of Derrynoose, praised the commitment of a group of girls who have been together since before Christmas.

“We started on the second of November with our trials. We’re probably on the go longer than any senior inter-county team – it’s a nine-month schedule. Now, there was a six-week break for exams, which prolongs it, but yeah, we’ve been on the go since the second of November, so it’s pretty elongated.

“The girls put their shoulder to the wheel. There were club commitments and some of the girls play camogie so it’s been a busy schedule. We had a panel of 31 and they’ve been on the go a while, but it’s all ended up well.”

Gollogly says that this Armagh team could always boast a strong defence, but it took significant work on the training pitch for their attack to really gel together. They got there in the end and were full value for their win over Leinster representatives Longford.

“I suppose the forwards get the headlines, but our defence was rock solid again. Conceding only nine points in an All-Ireland final gave us a great platform to work off.

“We’ve been improving over the past four or five games. At the start of the year, we found scores hard to come by. We made a few positional changes and the scores started to come. We’ve never conceded more than 12 points all year. We conceded nine points today, I think it was five in the semi-final, and we’ve conceded no goals. We knew that if things clicked up front, we’d be very hard to stop.”

Once the celebrations are done and dusted, the players will return to their clubs ahead of the forthcoming club championships at minor and senior level. Happily, a sizeable number of the panel will be eligible for selection again in 2027.

“The girls have really put their shoulders to the wheel. There’s been club football, camogie, exams. We’ve had a panel of 31 and it’s just nice they’ve got their just reward. The championships are starting so they’ll see plenty of each other over the next while.

“It’s all good, there are seven [players] and two subs who came on who are back next year, so there’s a good base there for next year and hopefully we’ll push on.”