Steelstown in bonus territory

AT the start of the season, Steelstown’s main objective was to get out of Derry and win a game in the Ulster Championship. Thomas Cusack’s girls completed that ambition last weekend.

Their prize for beating Armagh representatives Shane O’Neill’s, away from home, was a spot in the provincial semi-finals, where they now take on Moneyglass of Antrim.

Moneyglass contested the All-Ireland final last season and are the defending Ulster champions, so they go into the game as favourites to get back to the provincial decider.

Steelstown had lost out to Knockbride, last season’s Intermediate All-Ireland winners, the first day out but bounced back in impressive fashion to reach the last four.

“It was a great win for us and it was well deserved, it wasn’t a lucky win but for this year, we set out our stall at the start of the year just to win the Derry Championship and go on and win an Ulster game,” Cusack said.

“After our first performance in the first game against Knockbride, we targeted the Shane O’Neill’s game and put everything into it to get the win.

“Everybody stood up for us, and we played our own game. Everything went well for us on the day and it’s better when you go away from home for a game like that, it helps create a bit of a bond within the team.”

With the win under their belts, the Steelstown girls will be buzzing when they enter the training field this week, but Cusack insists the mood has been good for the past number of weeks, even after their first-round loss.

“The game against Knockbride, we were a bit flat, but everybody was in good form before the Shane O’Neill’s game and it’s the same thing this week,” he added.

“It’s a big task. We know Moneyglass are a serious outfit. The way we started our season and our objective compared to how Moneyglass started their season, they want to go one further and win the All-Ireland.

“We have our objective met and they’re still chasing theirs, but we’ll be going into the game and playing with freedom and hopefully we can go and give a good account of ourselves.”

Playing with freedom. The shackles will be off for Steelstown and while they are the big pre-game underdogs, they are going to give it their best shot.

“We have completed our objective, but the girls now know that they can compete at this level,” Cusack explained.

“I think that was the problem in the first game (against Knockbride), the girls didn’t believe that they could compete at this level.

“But going to the likes of Shane O’Neill’s and getting a positive result, the beliefs there so we’ll be throwing off the shackles.

“We’ll be going out to play football and to play our game. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll work on Moneyglass to see what we can do with them, but we want to play our game too.”