Bantry Ladies Munster football champs

BY NOEL HORGAN

BANTRY Blues were crowned as Munster club junior A ladies’ football champions at Mahon in Cork last Sunday having beaten Tipperary champions Templemore after  extra time in a replay.

They had to depend on a last-gasp point for their survival in regulation time, but manager Paul Drummond revealed he was always confident Bantry Blues wouldn’t come away empty-handed from this hard-fought replay.

While admitting his charges were under pressure for much of the game, and that Templemore performed a lot better than they did in the drawn game, he insisted he was never in doubt that the players had the character to grind out the win.

‘We showed exactly what we were about today, we wanted this badly, and I knew we weren’t going to come off the pitch with anything but a victory.

‘We were obviously relieved when Aoife O’Driscoll kicked a late point to force extra time, and I suppose we were a bit fortunate that Templemore’s free-taker had an off-day, but the bottom line was that the girls dug deep at all times.

‘Once we did that, I felt there was every chance we’d eventually get over the line, and I thought we got the result we deserved in the end,’ he said.

Drummy agreed that Bantry were forced to fight a rearguard action for much of the game, but he pointed out that their defence coped admirably with the pressure.

‘Our backs were outstanding, they really stood up today, and the amount of blocks they got in was unbelievable.

‘They have been doing that all year of course, so I wasn’t surprised that they delivered the goods big-time again.’