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Dublin overcome Galway after extra time to secure All-Ireland ladies football final showdown with Meath
Dublin overcome Galway after extra time to secure All-Ireland ladies football final showdown with Meath

Irish Examiner

time13 hours ago

  • Sport
  • Irish Examiner

Dublin overcome Galway after extra time to secure All-Ireland ladies football final showdown with Meath

TG4 LGFA All-Ireland semi-final: Dublin 3-14 Galway 2-14 (after extra-time) Carla Rowe's audacious flick for a decisive goal at the start of the second half of extra-time will be the clip that will go viral during the week, but it was Hannah Tyrrell's composure under pressure that was the single-most significant play in Dublin's return to an All-Ireland final. A golden generation of Galway footballers has known any number of agonising hard luck stories in recent years, but none will haunt them as much as their inability to manage possession with a one-point lead and 60 seconds left on the clock at the end of normal time. All evening, sloppy handpassing had been the westerners' weak point. Their bravery and endeavour meant that they prevented plenty of inaccurate passes from becoming turnovers, but Dublin did pick up a fair share of their possession from unforced errors, and that made Galway's decision to try and keep the ball a risky one. They gave away one possession and then their second saw Aoife Molloy surrounded and then pinged for overcarrying, with time almost expired. Read More Meath impressively dethrone Kerry to book All-Ireland Ladies football final spot Tyrrell's free would have been a two-pointer in the men's game, but splitting the uprights from over 40 metres out was invaluable, as it sent the contest into overtime at 1-10 to 0-13, and it was only then that Dublin finally looked like the better team. Galway played with the breeze for the first ten minutes but only got one Olivia Divilly point in that period, while Dublin kicked three. Rowe's flamboyant finish made it 2-13 to 0-14, and a third goal from Kate Sullivan seemed to kill off the game, only for consecutive green flags from Andrea Trill and Divilly to leave 40 seconds of tension at the end. It wasn't just the closing minute of normal time that Galway will regret however. They also had the breeze in the first half-hour, but a string of missed goal chances meant that they were only level at the interval, 0-9 to 1-6. Olivia Divilly, Kate Geraghty and Nicola Ward all went well for the Connacht county but on another day, Kate Slevin could have had two goals instead of a single point and Louise Ward hit the crossbar, albeit Dublin also struck woodwork through Nicole Owens. Dublin managed the play well however, taking chunks of time off the clock for each attack at a time when anything more than 30 metres from goal was outside of scoring range. Rowe kicked two good points and Caoimhe O'Connor was devastatingly effective, winning a penalty which Tyrrell converted, and leading the race for player of the match before she went down injured shortly before half-time. Perhaps due to the absence of O'Connor and perhaps due to the natural balance between two teams that also needed 80 minutes to separate them in a quarter-final last year, Dublin failed to exploit the breeze and in a tense encounter that was high on tempo but also high on error count, it wasn't until Kate Sullivan hooked a shot over the bar with her right foot in the 45th minute that a score was registered in the second half. Neither side shot a wide in the first half while Dublin had three after the break, meaning the contest was still finely poised going into the closing minutes, 1-9 to 0-12. Andrea Trill came off the bench to score what could have been the winner with her first involvement, but the little bit of composure that Galway lacked to see things out, Tyrrell showed in spades with her season-transforming free kick. Scorers for Dublin: H Tyrrell (1-6, 0-5f, 1-0 pen), C Rowe (1-2), K Sullivan (1-1), N Hetherton (0-2), S Goldrick (0-1), O Nolan (0-1), S McIntyre (0-1). Scorers for Galway: O Divilly (1-3), R Leonard (0-5, 0-4f), A Trill (1-1), E Noone (0-3, 0-1f), K Slevin (0-2, 0-1f). DUBLIN: A Shiels; J Tobin, L Caffrey, N Crowley; M Byrne, N Donlon, H McGinnis; É O'Dowd, N Hetherton; C O'Connor, S Goldrick, N Owens; H Tyrrell, C Rowe, K Sullivan. Subs: O Nolan for O'Connor (27), L Grendon for Rowe (39), S McIntyre for Owens (47), Rowe for Hetherton (52), Hetherton for McGinnis (full-time), A Kane for Byrne (73), H Leahy for Donlon (74), C Darby for Rowe (76), A Timothy for Sullivan (76). GALWAY: D Gower; K Geraghty, C Trill, B Quinn; H Noone, N Ward, A Molloy; L Ward, S Divilly; N Divilly, O Divilly, A Davoren; E Noone, R Leonard, K Slevin. Subs: L Noone for N Divilly (half-time), K Thompson for Leonard (41), L Coen for Davoren (50), A Trill for Slevin (57), M Glynn for S Divilly (70), M Banek for Quinn (h-t in e-t), Davoren for Coen (h-t in e-t), Slevin for L Noone (h-t in e-t), C Cooney for Molloy (75), S Lynch for Banek (77). Referee: Seamus Mulvihill (Kerry).

Different ball game but road bowling a family affair for Armagh netminder Ethan Rafferty
Different ball game but road bowling a family affair for Armagh netminder Ethan Rafferty

Irish Examiner

time4 days ago

  • Sport
  • Irish Examiner

Different ball game but road bowling a family affair for Armagh netminder Ethan Rafferty

Ethan Rafferty achieved a unique addition to his All-Ireland football medal won last year when claiming the All-Ireland senior road bowling crown over the weekend. The latter success, though, is no way unique to his family. Sunday's win merely lifts him onto the bottom step of a family ladder steeped in road bowling silverware. After victory on the west Cork roads around Castletownkenneigh, there's little doubt that road bowling must carry a significant degree of importance to him if he is making the time to operate to such a high level in tandem with his existence within the consuming inter-county sphere. 'It's real family-oriented for myself,' he says, before dropping in the mightily impressive stat that his win keeps the senior men's title in the family for a fourth successive year. 'My grandfather, Aidan Toal, was big into it and that filtered down. His son, Michael Toal, has ten All-Ireland titles, and then there's all the cousins and we would've played together growing up. 'I won it this year, my younger brother Colm won the Senior All-Ireland last year, and then the two years before that was a first cousin of ours, Thomas Mackle, so it's obviously close to your heart because it's your family. My auntie Dervla [Toal], she's a reigning All-Ireland Ladies champion too, so I would be rightfully down the pecking order with regards to All-Irelands in the family. THROUGH THE MILLING CROWDS: Armagh's Ethan Rafferty - better known as the county's No 1 - contesting (and winning) the All-Ireland Senior Road Bowling Championships at Castletownkenneigh in Co Cork. This decisive moment, brilliantly captured by Greta Cormican, is his throw from 'The Black Gate' to 'Fehilly's Lane' and was critical in ensuring Rafferty went out to Forshin's Cross in one more. That and his following throw made it virtually impossible for final opponent Arthur McDonagh to mount a successful comeback. Pic: Greta Cormican 'All my uncles, aunties, mum and dad, and all came down to the score on Sunday, it means a lot, so you try and find time for it the best you can, you get out for 10 or 15 minutes practice, and that's how you keep tipping at it.' The journey down from Armagh was made on Saturday with only one stop, that to take in Tyrone and the Orchard County's quarter-final conquerors Kerry. The two-mile course was walked that evening to have its curvature sampled and studied, Ethan and his dad enjoying the road to themselves in sharp contrast to the throngs that packed the following day. 'It was a civil enough score Sunday, but the crowds can be heated because you'd have fellas there wagering a lot on it, so they're obviously looking to get the win. 'With the large crowd, it can be hard to navigate the road and ask them to get out of the way, but before each shot they are good, if you want to look up the left-hand side of the road, they'll clear that side. 'I have an uncle, a cousin, and a friend in my camp so to speak, so I would leave it up to them, they can read the road a bit better than I would. You're sort of going off what they are telling you.' Two weeks after Kerry dismantled his kickout and dethroned Armagh in the process, Sunday was a timely triumph. 'With the football going on, I wasn't sure if I was going to get playing the bullets at all this year. Obviously the season ended prematurely for us, and so this was something I could put my head into and focus on after the football. 'I didn't expect to be competing for the senior All-Ireland title this year, after only winning the intermediate last year, but I gave it my best and thankfully it worked out.'

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