Treanor chuffed as Truagh come through

By Shaun Casey

IT was tough, it was tight and it was tense right to the very finish, but Truagh Gaels held off Naomh Columba to win a first ever Ulster Intermediate Ladies Championship title, much to the relief of hard-working wing forward Jenny Treanor.

The club were crowned Ulster Junior champions back in 2008 and they were certainly made to work for a second provincial prize.

Every time the Monaghan girls looked like they could pull away, Naomh Columba, competing in their first Ulster final, would reel them back in.

“It’s amazing, it’s absolutely amazing,” Treanor said after the full-time whistle. “That was one of the toughest matches we’ve played all year.

“They were one of the most physical and speediest teams that we have come across. We knew what we were coming up against and we’re delighted to get over the line.

“We knew that they were a very determined, strong running, young team so we knew that regardless of what happened, they were going to come back at us and they did.”

Two first-half goals from Player of the Match Any Murray helped Anthony Treanor’s girls establish a five-point advantage at half time.

Naomh Columba rattled the net twice after the turnaround through Emma Cunningham, but the accurate Morgan McKenna, who finished as top scorer with 1-8 on the day, knocked over a few important insurance scores at the end.

“I actually don’t think Morgan missed any frees all day. With every free that she kicked, you were just pleading that she’d put it over and in fairness to her, she got every single one.”

Truagh reached the Monaghan county final last season and lost out to Latton, but they were determined to bounce back in 2026.

“We didn’t really have that many players out last year, but we came together in the last couple of months and got to the final.

“We did well enough, but we didn’t win it in the end. But everybody came back in January this year, the first week of January and everybody stuck to it the whole year.

“Nobody gave up, everybody was at every training, and we pushed it hard all year because we believed that we were a good enough team to go far.”

Getting out of the Farney County was their ultimate goal and with back-to-back home games in Ulster, against St John’s and Cornafean, Truagh soon set their sights on going on a run.

“I think that everyone will say that the hardest thing is to get out of your county so obviously Monaghan was the target,” Treanor continued.

“After that, we just took every game as they came. We knew that we could get this far and that we could push ourselves, so we backed ourselves right to the end.”