‘Ladies football needs competition to bridge gap from minor to senior,’ insists former Cork shot-stopper O'Brien

BY KIERAN McCARTHY

FOUR-TIME All-Ireland winning Cork footballer Martina O’Brien is urging the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) to seriously explore a viable competition to bridge the gap between minor and senior levels.

The Ballinascarthy woman, who recently retired from inter-county football, is warning ladies football will lose players if, as is currently the case, there is no competition at U20/U21 level to help players make the transition from minor to senior.

The LGFA has run the Aisling McGing U21 championship in the past, and former Cork goalkeeper O’Brien is urging the powers-that-be to explore the creation of a sustainable new grade between minor and senior. Her fear is that ladies football will lose a lot of players who will fall between the gap that currently exists.

‘Not many minors have done it, made that jump from minor to senior. You get some incredible girls, like Erika O’Shea, who have done it, but the physicality is totally different now … the fitness levels needed. You need to give yourself two years to give your body a chance to adapt. I do think they need some form of a competition that bridges that gap from minor to senior,’ O’Brien told the Star Sport Podcast. 

‘In junior and intermediate grades it will be marginally easier for teams to take their minors out and integrate them into their adult teams, but at senior level that is just too hard. 

‘This is something that they (LGFA) are going to have to look at, otherwise you are going to lose a lot of talented footballers because they’ll just not play football. They might not get onto that senior team straightway so you are losing that talent that might actually peak in their 20s.

‘Whether it’s an U20 competition or U21, they just need something, and a competition that is going to be viable.’

This is an issue that former Cork minor ladies football manager Joe Carroll raised in last week’s Southern Star. He said: ‘There is nowhere for U18 girls to go except straight to senior. There is no U20 grade, no senior B, no competition that will give them another year or two in their development.’

O’Brien also feels Cork needs to look at its own structures, and how to better translate its All-Ireland minor football success into the senior ranks. While Cork have won five of the last six All-Ireland minor A titles, the Rebels’ last senior All-Ireland triumph was in 2016.

‘Cork are winning every year in nearly all grades at underage so you’d think that conveyor belt should really be coming to the fore in senior, but it hasn’t. It’s something they need to look at and work on,’ O’Brien said.