Termon braced for another Tyrone test

By Niall Gartland

TERMON have firmly reasserted themselves as top dogs in Donegal so the next step is leaving a mark in the Ulster Senior Ladies Championship.

The Termon ladies lost two county titles on the spin at the turn of the decade to Glenfin, but they’ve bounced back in style, recently claiming the three in-a-row with an entirely one-sided victory over Moville.

The question of the hour is whether they have what it takes to establish primacy on a provincial level. They won Ulster SFC titles in 2010 and 2014 but haven’t reached the final since 2019, and they’ll be on their guard against Tyrone representatives St Macartan’s in their provincial opener this weekend after the events of last year.

Termon could have no complaints about the manner of last year’s first-round defeat to another Tyrone side, Errigal Ciaran, but joint-manager Adrian McGettigan hopes that they’ve improved enough in the mean-time to really give St Macartan’s something to think about.

“St Macartan’s are going to be tough – we really got our eyes opened last year when we went up to Errigal Ciaran and they beat us out of the park.

“It was a seven-point victory but it could’ve been 14, they were so far ahead of us. Hopefully we’ve bridged the gap and if we bring our ‘A’ game we’ll see if it’s enough to get us over the line.”

It’s been a storied season for Termon across the board with their men’s team winning the Intermediate Championship. In his acceptance speech, men’s captain Ricky Gallagher paid tribute to their renowned ladies team, a nice touch that didn’t go unnoticed.

McGettigan, who manages Termon ladies with his cousin Kevin McGettigan, said: “That’s the thing about us, a lot of our club have brothers and sisters playing. Ricky has a sister playing for us. It’s a small community here, we work hand-in-hand together and share the pitch at times.

“Sometimes the senior men take half a pitch and we take half a pitch and there’s never any hassle. We always say we’re the one club and it’s really bore fruit this year, the men have had a fantastic season. They really support us and we really support them and that’s the way it will continue.”

Termon cruised to Donegal SFC honours with a 7-13 to 1-8 victory over Moville – the goals coming from Ciara McGarvey, Evelyn McGinley, Jodie McFadden (two of them), Geraldine McLaughlin (a hat-trick). After county finals in 2020 and 2021, they’ve pushed on again and there’s no doubting that they’re the leading ladies team in Donegal at the moment.

McGettigan said: “It’s nice to get three in-a-row, we’d a few tight battles with Glenfin and they beat us in 2020 and 2021, but to be fair they’ve lost a player or two to Australian Rules and that’s probably weakened them a small bit.

“This year we’ve really kicked on though we had a lot of girls in with the Donegal intercounty team and it took them a while to get blended in as we didn’t have them in the league. It’s falling into place now and we’re excited about having a crack at Ulster.”