Galligan hopes home advantage will stand to Cavan camogs

By Shaun Casey

AFTER three games on the road, Cavan are hoping that the comforts of home will see them pick up their third straight victory and qualify for the next stages of the All-Ireland Premier Junior Championship.

The Breffni Blues have beaten Connacht duo Mayo and Roscommon in recent weeks, following a chastising first round defeat to Laois, and a win this weekend over Limerick would guarantee at least a third-place finish.

If Cavan can get the job done and Laois beat Roscommon in the final round, then Cavan would leap to second in the table due to their head-to-head record with the Rossies.

“We’re all just looking forward to getting a home game and especially when it’s the last game,” said Cavan stalwart Erinn Galligan. “We’ll be hoping to try and get a crowd out behind us, and it might just give us that extra edge that we need.

“It’s coming at the right time for us. It would be worse if we had lost a home game and then we were going to travel, looking for a win at the last group stage. So, we’re putting all our eggs in this basket now this weekend and hoping for a result.”

Limerick have lost two of their three games, with their one triumph coming against Mayo the last day out but should the Munster ladies see off Cavan on Saturday, they then would capture that third position in the table.

While Cavan don’t have much recent history with this weekend’s opponents, Galligan saw enough a couple of years ago to realise they’re in for a tough battle this weekend when Limerick come calling.

“When we were first starting back up there a couple of years ago, we went down to Limerick to play them in the group stage, and we got a lesson in camogie,” said Galligan. “They train with their first team, and they were really wristy camogie players.

“They have a different system altogether to what we’d have in Cavan. We run the ball probably a lot more in places whereas they were spreading the ball wide and doing diagonal passes and switching plays, and it really opened up our defence.”

Cavan showed a resilient streak the last day out against Roscommon to come from behind and earn a two-point win thanks to a late Tina Reilly goal and Galligan says they have learned their lessons from previous defeats.

“The girls around the middle kept working and eventually we got the lucky break with two or three minutes to go. We never gave up. We learned from the first game against Laois when we leaked a few scores and that left a large deficit to claw back. We dropped our heads and it turned into an awful bad beating, so we realised that if we do go behind, just to keep going.”