Fighting spirit paying off for O’Sullivan’s Culloville

TO win the Armagh Intermediate Camogie Championship for the first time in their history, Culloville needed to muster up all their battling qualities and they’ll carry that same fighting spirit into the Ulster campaign.

That’s the view of team captain Roisin O’Sullivan.

The Blues saw off a fancied and unbeaten Derrynoose side in the final with the aid of a last-minute goal and will now take on Tyrone champions Naomh Treasa, Dungannon this Saturday.

“It was the first time Culloville ever got to an Intermediate final, never mind winning it so we were really delighted with it,” said O’Sullivan.

“We worked really hard; we went out fighting for that. From the start of the year, we just wanted to get over that line and we finally did. We really put it up to Derrynoose and Derrynoose didn’t lose a game throughout the entire league, so we were huge underdogs.

“We had a really good first half, we went in at half time leading by five points and then Derrynoose came back and put us on the ropes again, so it was really neck and neck in the second half.

“But we just kept fighting and we didn’t put our heads down. We were down by a point with two minutes to go and we just grabbed that winning goal at the end.”

There’s been a “great buzz” in training ever since that championship win and Culloville now begin their journey into the unknown, but they’re looking forward to the challenge and the task ahead.

“There’s a really great buzz about the club. We have really upped the training now and we’re going to go out fighting to get over the next line again. It’s a completely different ball game getting out of the county,” continued Culloville’s all-action midfielder.

“The Ulster semi-final will be a completely different story, but we’ll still go out with the same attitude, go out fighting. Everyone probably looks at us as the underdogs and we’ll just keep that mentality and keep going through.

“I think that mentality suits us, we can definitely go out and do well in Ulster, that’s the plan anyway. We don’t really know much about them (Dungannon) to be honest.

“It’s going to be interesting with match ups and things like that when we don’t really know them. We are sort of going in blind, but we’ll have a plan in place and hopefully that’ll be enough to get us over the line on the day.”

There were a lot of celebrations in the club following their historic county final victory and the team enjoyed every minute.

But O’Sullivan insists that they have now turned all their attention to extending their season further, and they have been trying to find that balance between savouring the moment of their success inside the county and focusing on the upcoming Ulster game.

“You have to find the balance; we’re just coming off that great win so we’re just getting focused again and working really hard at training.

“We’ve really upped it at training now, so we’ll go in fighting,” she added.