Fearless Lurgan braced for Donaghmoyne test

By Shaun Casey

A YOUTHFUL and fearless Lurgan ladies side will take the field against reigning Ulster champions Donaghmoyne this weekend as huge underdogs. But they have “nothing to lose at this stage” according to boss Emmet Daly.

Lurgan battled past Donegal champions Termon last weekend and are expecting another tough test on Sunday.

“Donaghmoyne, everyone knows they’re a top-class outfit, they’re reigning Ulster champions and they’ve five All-Ireland titles, so they’re a super team, said Daly.

“We’re young, we’ve nothing to lose at this stage, we’ll give it our all and see what happens. We’ll put in a performance and let the result look after itself.

“Our team this year and over the past two years, the whole team has transitioned. We’re a very young team and we have probably seven or eight girls that are minors that would be on our starting team.

“Our full back line is made up of three u-16 players so we’re quite young. But in saying that they’re fearless, they’re young girls and they’ve won county titles on underage teams, and they’ve won Ulster titles as well so they have nothing to lose at this stage.

“If someone told us at the start of the year that we were going to get to an Ulster semi-final we would have taken it. We’ve nothing to lose so we’ll push on and see what happens.”

Lurgan powered to the last four with an awesome second half performance to see off Termon in the opening round of the provincial campaign. Daly’s side trailed by five at the break, 0-6 to 0-1, but three goals from top scorer Clara Lynch (2-3) and Eimear Corcoran made all the difference in their one-point victory.

“We broke their defence a couple of times and in fairness to their goalkeeper, she pulled off two point blank saves in the first half,” added the Lurgan manager.

“One of the goals was a penalty and another was a free that went over the head of the goalkeeper and the third was a great team effort.

“We’d a super second half, we felt at half time that we were maybe a little panicky, it was a big occasion for us because it has been a long time since we were up playing in Ulster.

“We knew going up against Termon it was going to be tough so nerves were a big thing as well, but I think we realised at half time that we could get the win. We pushed on in the second half, everyone put in a good shift and thankfully we got the result.

“We didn’t say too much (at half time). We just cleared up a few things, we were probably a bit all over the place defensively, letting them attack us so we just settled things.

“We said we were after making a three-hour long trip, we’ve 30 minutes to get a victory so let’s leave everything on the field and that’s what they did.”