Graham hails youth injection in Ahoghill success story

By Michael McMullan

AN Ahoghill team with a youthful core won the Antrim Intermediate title ahead of their expectations and now face into Sunday’s Ulster Junior decider against All-Ireland champions Granemore.

Antrim goalkeeper Caitríona Graham is the team’s attacking axis up front and is full of praise for the input of the newcomers coming into the team this season.

It wasn’t until the county final win over Loughgiel reserves that they had their full hand to pick from with Maura Downey coming off the bench to mark her return from injury.

“We struggle throughout the year with numbers,” said Graham, citing county and the younger players’ exam seasons as part of the reasoning.

As the year went on, they picked up momentum in a championship run that saw them play all their games away from home. In the end, it galvanised them.

In a group with Loughgiel and Portglenone, Ahoghill would need to dig deep to emerge. And they did just that.

Winning in Loughgiel, to reverse their 2023 defeat, was a significant win. They backed it up with victory over neighbours Portglenone before their semi-final win over Cargin set up a repeat fixture with Loughgiel in the final

“All the games were really tough and the scorelines didn’t reflect them,” said Graham of their campaign.

Ahoghill epitomise what a functioning small cub is. A few families. Everybody plays. Nobody is allowed to retire. Coming out of underage, there is always a senior jersey for grabs whereas in bigger clubs, players can fizzle away.

It has been their underage coaching that has made the difference to their team.

From the Bridie McMenamin Cup winning team of 2019, almost two thirds are still on board but it’s the other half dozen who’ve helped the overall stock to rise.

“We’ve had a lot of solid underage teams coming through,” Graham pointed out.

“There’s maybe five or six who broke onto the team this year. It’s a very young team.

“I’m probably one of the older ones and I’m only 25, so we’ve got a lot of underage teams coming up and a few of those players have broken through.

“We probably never expected the Intermediate Championship to come this early, but it’s a testament to those girls what they’ve done to the group and that was the thing that got us over the line this year.”

Ahoghill’s path to Sunday was a semi-final win over Kilrea in another game the winning margin didn’t tell the full story of.

“Saturday was probably the toughest game I’ve ever played in with a club,” Graham said. “It was the second half especially; it was nip and tuck really the whole way and again I think we won by six points again but it did not feel like a six-point win.”

Now they are out of the frying pan and into the fire with Granemore standing in the way of provincial silverware.

This is a typical Ulster club story of walking into the dark. The clubs have never crossed paths before but Granemore are a well-known name in the game.

“I know they have a lot of experience in that team and with Armagh they have a good few players,” Graham offered.

“I know obviously with them winning last year, they’ll have a lot of experience behind them from that as well.”

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