Cork 3-11
Dublin 3-2
ALLIE Tobin signed off on her Cork underage football career in style – she captained her county to All-Ireland U18 A Ladies Football Championship glory.
‘It was the perfect ending,’ the Skibbereen teen (18) says.
‘There are a few of us who are in our last year of underage with Cork so to win the All-Ireland now is special.
‘After all the hard work over the years, it’s great that it has paid off,’ Tobin adds – and it paid off in style.
Kate Carey scores Cork's third goal in the All-Ireland final.
These young Rebels were ruthlessly dominant in an emphatic ZuCar All-Ireland U18A Ladies Football Championship triumph against a shell-shocked Dublin at St Brendan’s Park in Birr on Saturday.
Three goals in the first half sent Cork on their way to glory, and all three can be traced back to West Cork clubs and, indeed, Skibbereen Community School. Player of the match Kate Carey, who kicked 2-3, and Éabha O’Donovan, who hit 1-2, were both on their school team that won the All-Ireland senior A title earlier in the year. Allie Tobin was a rock on that team, too. All three swelled their medal collections and played central roles in this Cork success.
Saoirse Cunningham, Catherine Murphy and Orlaith Drummey.
‘We travel up and down to training together all the time, so it’s great to share a success like this with them,’ Tobin explains.
‘Kate and Éabha played really well, and so did everyone else – this was a real team performance.
‘We felt that if we worked really hard then we could get a good result. We were very compact at the back and our forwards turned them over a lot as well, and that work-rate in the first half helped us build that half-time lead.
‘In the second half, we worked as hard as we could. It was hard to keep that intensity up for the full game, but we never stopped.’
Cork captain Allie Tobin lifts the cup.
Cork hit the ground running with points from Éabha O’Donovan and Sarah O’Connor before Kate Carey, Ilen Rovers’ rising star, rattled the back of the net after 11 minutes. The Rebels were in the driving seat.
There was no holding Carey as she added a brace of points, and while Dublin did get on the scoreboard with efforts from Niadh Mooney and Lile Tully, Cork had the momentum. Soon, they had the goals that sealed a dominant first-half performance.
We had the Hand of Éabha, first, as the O’Donovan Rossa footballer palmed home Cork’s second goal. Minutes later, Kate Carey burst through the Dublin defence and rifled home a brilliant third goal.
Leading 3-5 to 0-2 at half time, Kieran O’Shea’s young guns were in a good place. Crucially, they didn’t lose their focus. The lessons learned by teams after watching Cork hurlers’ All-Ireland final second-half collapse are being noted – Kerry football manager Jack O’Connor mentioned it after his team’s All-Ireland final success, and Cork minor ladies were determined not to drop their levels.
Cork captain Allie Tobin (O'Donovan Rossa), Eabha O'Donovan (O'Donovan Rossa), Kate Carey (Ilen Rovers) and Ellen Connolly (Castlehaven) celebrate in Skibbereen on Saturday night after the Rebels won the All-Ireland U18A football final against Dublin. (Photo: Anne Minihane)
‘The management kept our feet on the ground at half time, while telling us that we were doing a lot of things right,’ Tobin says.
‘We knew ourselves that it wasn’t over, and we saw what happened in the hurling final the previous weekend so we had to keep going – those 15 minutes after half time were critical, to stop them coming back.
‘We also knew that they would get their purple patch, so we just had to weather the storm. And we did that.’
Cork captain Allie Tobin celebrating with Elisia Carroll.
Dublin did threaten, but it was Cork who got the scores that mattered, as points from Laura Walsh, Carey and O’Donovan (free) in a six-minute spell pushed the lead out to 15 points. Now, Cork were in total control.
Molly Bourke did rattle home two quick-fire goals for Dublin inside the final quarter, but such was Cork’s lead, they were never really in any danger.
Laura Walsh and Aoibhe Sheehan tagged on more scores, and while Dublin did register a third goal late on, by then we all knew the All-Ireland cup was heading back to Cork. In fact, Skibbereen was its destination on Saturday, being the hometown of captain Allie Tobin.
That was another special night for Tobin, her Skibb team-mate Éabha O’Donovan, Kate Carey, and Ellen Connolly of Castlehaven, who was also on the Cork minor panel. There was a heroes’ welcome at O’Donovan Rossa GAA grounds and, of course, a rousing rendition of Kingfishr’s cult song, Killeagh.
Cork minor star Éabha O'Donovan with her grandparents Jenny and John Hamilton after the team arrived back to Skibbereen on Saturday night. (Photo: Anne Minihane)
‘It’s the new popular song!’ Tobin laughs.
‘It was great to come home to Skibbereen, to see all my family and friends there.’
It was also the dream goodbye to Tobin’s underage Cork career – she finally got her hands on an inter-county All-Ireland medal that had eluded her.
‘It was incredible – some of our team have been playing underage together for five years, so to win an All-Ireland together is a great feeling,’ she says, noting that Cork lost an All-Ireland U16 final previously.
‘It was almost a sense of relief, too, at the final whistle because we had done it – and then the celebrations began!’
Scorers
Cork: K Carey 2-3; E O’Donovan 1-2 (1f); L Walsh 0-3 (1f); J Foskin, S O’Connor, A Sheehan 0-1 each.
Dublin: M Bourke 2-0; R McEvoy 1-0; L Tully, N Mooney 0-1 each.
Cork: Andrea Toye (St Michael’s); Orlaith Drummey (Erin’s Own), Allie Tobin (O’Donovan Rossa), Aisling O’Sullivan (Donoughmore); Rachel Breen (Mourneabbey), Maisie McRae (Áth Fhada), Eimear Walsh (Mourneabbey); Saoirse Cunningham (Erin’s Own), Johanna Foskin (Bishopstown); Sarah O’Connor (Ballincollig), Laura Walsh (Mourneabbey), Ava McAuliffe (Midleton); Éabha O’Donovan (O’Donovan Rossa), Kate Carey (Ilen Rovers), Aoibhe Sheehan (Douglas).
Subs: Gemma Young (Éire Óg) for Foskin (50), Ella Burns (Grenagh) for Sheehan (52), Caoimhe Horgan (Kinsale) for McAuliffe (55), Aisling Leahy (St Michael’s) for Carey, Saorla Ní Laoire (Youghal) for O’Sullivan (both 60).
Dublin: K Behan; K Hayes, T Walsh, A Pollock; C Sone Lenou, H Murphy, K O’Donovan; S McDonnell, L Tully; L Murtagh, M Bourke, C Murphy; N Mooney, Z Flood, G Connolly.
Subs: K Mooney for Walsh, R Kirby for Murphy, R McEvoy for Flood (all h-t), C Almeida for McDonnell (42), E Reen for O’Donovan (47).
Referee: Gavin Finnegan (Down).
