Belief is rising in Derry ladies

By Niall Gartland

WHERE there’s a will, there’s a way. Derry ladies have toiled off the beaten track in the lower reaches of Division Four in recent years, but something’s a-brewin’ in the Oakleaf County.

They picked up a win against Kilkenny in Division Four in their first competitive outing of the season, which was nice and all but needs to be placed in context; Kilkenny scored a combined total of 21 points in their seven league matches. An average of three points a game isn’t exactly worth writing home about.

Performances on the whole were encouraging though – and then came a moment of undeniable substance, overcoming Antrim in their All-Ireland Junior Championship round-one clash nearly a fortnight ago. That’s the same Antrim team that recently clinched promotion to Division Two.

The same Antrim team that trounced Derry in the Ulster Junior final.

So recording a victory over the Saffrons was big, big news as far as the Derry ladies were concerned. One swallow doesn’t make a summer though, and they followed it up with a resounding 6-10 to 0-10 victory away to Longford at the weekend.

Now they’re in the midst of preparations for a home tie against Kilkenny this Sunday. The safe bet is on another victory for Derry – a run of results nearly unthinkable just a short while ago.

Speaking ahead of the game, Seamus Shivers, who jointly leads the team with Greg McArdle, says that getting players to actively want to line out for Derry has been half the battle. In that sense, success breeds success.

“Look, I suppose over the last number of years Derry have been underachieving at county level. There hasn’t been the progress they’d have liked given the quality of player available.

“The biggest positive that’s coming out of it is that we’re now seeing that the girls within this group are really keen and determined to represent Derry. There’s a lot of passion.

“The club scene is growing, with a lot of teams popping up throughout the county. There’s underage development and a serious amount of work going on there as well, which is adding to the numbers. There’s really good coaching in the schools too. That’s boosting the quality of everything that’s going on within ladies’ football and we’re feeding into that.

“The biggest job we had was pulling a squad together and convincing girls that playing for the county is something worth doing. It’s about treating them like county players and valuing them. We’re slowly getting there and, in our minds, it was never going to happen overnight.

“But the result we got against Antrim in particular has sped up that process.”

There’s no overstating the significance of that recent victory over Antrim – and Derry were full value for it, in one of the stand-out results anywhere in the country at any level this year.

“It was a massive game and I suppose, on the back of us playing them in the Ulster final two weeks beforehand, we really felt as if we underachieved that day. The girls themselves knew that. We probably took a fair bit of responsibility for that as management in terms of how we set them up.

“We probably didn’t give Antrim the respect we should have and they were too good for us on the day. They fully deserved their victory, a 15-point victory.

“There were a lot of learnings coming out of that, both for the management and the girls on the pitch. It was huge motivation to play them in the first All-Ireland game. We probably felt we didn’t have an awful lot to lose at that point as well, which gave us a bit of freedom. We got the first few points and that gave them confidence, and we just pushed on.

“It was massive for the belief within the group. The girls are so willing to learn and I think the lessons they took from the Ulster final against Antrim really stood to them.”

They backed up that win over Antrim with a thumping victory over Longford at the weekend. Shivers hopes that they’ve reached a stage where they’ve truly turned a corner.

“It was overall a very good performance and very satisfying. I suppose on the back of the Antrim win, people maybe felt it was a bit of a flash in the pan, so it was great for us to get a victory away from home and back that up.

“We’ve maybe turned a bit of a corner. From the word go, we were well tuned in, got a couple of points and then, midway through the first half, we rattled in three quick goals. That gave us the breathing space and we sustained it.

“We were nine points up at half-time and were able to maintain that in the second half. We defended very well, didn’t let them have a sight of goal and hit them on the break for further goals, so it was reasonably comfortable and very satisfying because we didn’t really look like conceding a goal and were threatening any time we went forward. It was a good day.”

Next in the firing line is a Kilkenny side accustomed to the pain of defeat. Derry are strong favourites, but their ultimate progression could hinge on their fourth and final group stage encounter against Offaly.

“It gives us a really good opportunity to push on. Obviously, we’ve got Kilkenny coming up on Sunday and that’s a game we’ll be looking to win. Then, on our last day, we’re away to Offaly, which I think will be key to the whole thing. Hopefully we get a result against Kilkenny and then probably have to beat Offaly as well. It’s just the way the results have gone that there could potentially be three teams fighting it out at the top and it could even come down to score difference.”