Galway Minor Ladies All-Ireland Champions 2010( Second Half)

In the second half of the All- Ireland Galway had wind and a 3 point advantage. It was looking good, however, they were mindful of Cork's experience in the SF when everything was tee'd up for Cork to pull away. Galway played a safe game. Dora who was suffering with a sprain to her remaining good ankle went up front, and Lisa came back to midfield. The wing forwards played defensively, and came back to help crowd the 45, Tessa Mullins who played wing back in the SF was much more comfortable at wing forward and scored three superb points. Galway commanded the game and got a lot of possession and scores from frees. Donegal were nervous with Dora prowling on the 20m line and double marked her. Long ball in became less of an option, only two or three were attempted, which is a credit to her midfield suppliers as they had spotted the Donegal strategy, and consciously or subconsciously altered their game. Niamh McLaughlin put on a great display of high fielding. She won most of their kick outs, but she found it hard to hold possession against Amy Rohan and was surgically disposessed on two occasions whild trying to carve open the defence. Siobhan Divilly saved Galway bacon with a great block down of a point blank shot. Lisa Murphy had two good saves, the only ball that she did not stop was a disputed goal. The holy water must have been sprinkled on the woodwork as the upright stopped a point, and when it bounced into play it was rifled to hit the blackspot on the crossbar. Ciara Meagher, Tara Hession, Louise Reddington and Aisling Donnelly were all introduced in the secondhalf. All put their personal touch on the game. Watch out for the photo of Tara Hession turning with her body 30 degrees to the horizontal... what power! Such was the strength on the bench that Con Moynihan knew that he could have put another dozen if the rules permitted, and the team would be just as strong. Donegal got a last minute fisted goal that put four points between the teams. After making such a contentious decision the ref wisely blew up the final whistle as the ball was kicked out. After six years, over 200 training sessions, a collective travel of 26000 miles of driving our daughters in cars(twice round the world), disappointments, worries, being a nearly team, some triumphs, good friends and friendships, injuries and recoveries, we were finally where we wanted to be. In all modesty, nobody or no team deserves it more.