Latest news with #Cavan
RTÉ News
9 hours ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Monaghan's Jennifer Duffy relishing derby date with Cavan
While most footballers are elevated to senior inter-county status in relatively low-key affairs, the polar opposite was the case for Monaghan's Jennifer Duffy back in 2019. In the same year, the O'Neill Shamrocks star was part of an impressive Monaghan side that made it all the way to an All-Ireland minor final. Having overcome a Meath team that was spearheaded by her future DCU Dóchas Eireann team-mate Emma Duggan at the penultimate phase of the competition, Duffy lined out at left corner-back when the Oriel County lost out to Cork in a top-tier underage decider held at Glenisk O'Connor Park in Tullamore. A mere 13 days on from this 4-11 to 1-08 reversal at the hands of the Leesiders, Duffy was drafted straight into the Monaghan starting line-up for their crunch TG4 All-Ireland SFC relegation play-off against Westmeath in Dunleer. Her minor colleagues Maeve Monaghan and Hannah Sherlock also appeared as substitutes in this game and with Duffy being one of three players to rattle the net in a 3-18 to 1-10 victory, it was a memorable introduction to the highest level of ladies football. "That was actually our first game and they were like 'right, you're going in midfield' and I was like 'oh, OK!' We were kind of held off until the end of that year. We had been so successful [with the minors], we said we'd focus on that first. In fairness, the senior management was very good to us," Duffy explained. "They said 'come in when you can, we just want to bring you into the camp for the next year or so'. A few of us stepped up that day. When you're that young, you're a bit naive to what is going on. You're happy enough to go in and play. I don't think at the time I knew how much the game meant. "Especially the older girls, there was no way they were going to be relegated. When I think back now, I think there was so much power put into that day, that girls were just like 'we need to win this'. When I was young, you look up to Cora Courtney and when she tells you to do something, you do it. That is just the way it went." Duffy's exploits across both those Monaghan sides in 2019 offered an early indication of her versatility and she has continued to showcase an incredible ability to look comfortable in practically every position on a football pitch. Regularly used at full-back, centre half-back or midfield in recent times, Duffy has added another string to her bow in 2025. Despite donning the number six jersey for their TG4 Ulster intermediate football championship semi-final against Cavan in Smithboro at the beginning of this month, Duffy was actually stationed on the edge of the square and helped herself to an excellent haul of 2-02. Even though she was handed a similar role in a round five triumph over Clare in their Lidl National Football League Division 2 campaign earlier this year – she contributed a personal tally of 2-01 on that occasion – Cavan were somewhat surprised to see Duffy being deployed as the fulcrum of the Monaghan attack in this game. "It was something in the league that I was just carrying an injury and they literally said 'right, we'll put you inside'. It kind of worked. I'd say Cavan didn't really expect me to be inside. "They actually have our ex-goalie coach in with them. I was full-back when he was over us and now I'm full-forward. It probably was a bit of a shock to their system. They didn't really know that I was going to be in there, but I play there for club. So it's just playing there for county now too." Cavan will have to contend with Duffy's attacking prowess once again on Sunday afternoon when Monaghan renew acquaintances with their interprovincial rivals in the opening round of the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship. Their Group 3 clash at St Tiernach's Park in Clones (throw-in 1.30pm) is part of a double-header with the men's clash between Monaghan and Clare. Given she expects their opponents to have a vocal following behind them in the wake of winning Division 3 of the Lidl National Football League and the TG4 Ulster intermediate football championship, Duffy is hopeful the Monaghan public will come out to support her team. "Cavan always have a good crowd with them, especially now. When teams are winning, you'll always have plenty of support to back them up. Every time we play them it is a derby, so you know you're going to get a good battle. "Even people getting in early for the men's game, they'll get the end of our game. It might actually start people to think 'oh, maybe we'll start supporting them'. It has nearly pushed us to be giving an even better performance, now that you know there is going to be a bigger crowd there." Since graduating from DCU, Duffy has been working steadily as a teacher at her own alma mater – Our Lady's Secondary School Castleblayney. This has effectively seen her coming full circle as during her time as a primary school student, one of her teachers was former Monaghan stalwart Nicola Fahy. She lined out for Monaghan at centre half-back in their TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship final defeat to Cork in Croke Park in 2011, when a young Duffy watched on in awe from the stands at GAA HQ. Fast forward nine years to an All-Ireland SFC campaign that was played in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and Duffy found herself lining out in defence alongside Fahy in championship games against Tipperary and Galway. "My school actually took us to the 2011 final. Nicola Fahy would have taught in my school. I definitely would have followed them the whole way up. Watched all the girls and getting that chance to actually play with them," Duffy added. "She [Fahy] was a primary school teacher and she would have taught me in school, so it was nearly nostalgic of thinking I was actually getting to play with her then come that late stage."
The Irish Sun
9 hours ago
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Jennifer Duffy and Monaghan on revenge mission against Cavan in All-Ireland intermediate championship after league loss
JENNIFER DUFFY continues to look forward despite defeat the last time she faced Cavan. And tomorrow, the Monaghan ace has the chance to gain revenge when the Ulster neighbours square off in Group 3 of the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship . Regularly used at full-back, centre-back or midfield previously, Duffy has added another string to her bow in 2025. Despite donning the No 6 jersey for the Farney's TG4 Ulster IFC semi-final against Cavan in Smithborough at the beginning of the month, she was actually stationed on the edge of the square and helped herself to an excellent haul of 2-2. Even though the O'Neill Shamrocks star was handed a similar role in a win over Clare in the NFL Division 2 campaign earlier this year — when she bagged 2-1 — Cavan were surprised to see Duffy being deployed as the fulcrum of the Monaghan attack. But Duffy explained: 'It was something in the league that I was just carrying an injury and they literally said, 'Right, we'll put you inside'. It kind of worked. I'd say Cavan didn't really expect me to be inside. Read More on LGFA 'They actually have our ex-goalie coach in with them. I was full-back when he was over us and now I'm full-forward. It probably was a bit of a shock to their system. 'They didn't really know that I was going to be in there, but I play there for club.' Despite Duffy's haul, the Breffni ladies won that day on a score of 2-15 to 3-8. But they will have to contend with Duffy's attacking prowess again in the sides' championship opener in Clones tomorrow, a curtain-raiser to the men's All-Ireland group-stage clash of Monaghan and Clare. Most read in GAA Football Given she expects their opponents to have a vocal following after winning Division 3 and the Ulster intermediate championship, Duffy is hopeful the Monaghan public will come out to support her team. She added: 'Cavan always have a good crowd with them, especially now. When teams are winning, you'll always have plenty of support to back them up. Every time we play them it is a derby, so you know you're going to get a good battle. Young Kerry LGFA fan steals the show with sign during All-Ireland final win over Galway 'Even people getting in early for the men's game, they'll get the end of our game. 'It might actually start people to think, 'Oh, maybe we'll start supporting them'. It has nearly pushed us to be giving an even better performance, now that you know there is going to be a bigger crowd there.' Duffy's hopes of evening the score with Cavan should be boosted by the fact she has always been seen as a big-game player — while most footballers are elevated to senior inter-county status in relatively low-key affairs, the polar opposite was the case for her in 2019. In the same year, she was part of an impressive Monaghan side that made it all the way to an All-Ireland minor 'A' championship final. Having already overcome a Meath team spearheaded by future double senior All-winner Emma Duggan, Duffy lined out at left corner-back when the Farney lost out to A mere 13 days on, she was drafted straight into the Monaghan senior starting line-up for their crunch TG4 All-Ireland SFC relegation play-off against And with Duffy being one of three players to rattle the net in a 3-18 to 1-10 victory led by Louise Kerley and Cora Courtney, it was a memorable introduction to the highest level of ladies football. STEPPING UP She recalled: 'They were like, 'Right, you're going in midfield', and I was like, 'Oh, OK.' 'A few of us stepped up that day. When you're that young, you're a bit naive to what is going on. You're happy enough to go in and play. I don't think at the time I knew how much the game meant. 'The older girls, there was no way they were going to be relegated. When I think back now, I think there was so much power put into that day, that the girls were just like, 'We need to win this'. 'When I was young, you look up to Cora Courtney and when she tells you to do something, you do it.' Since then, Duffy has always been learning — and now she is always teaching as well, and hoping to inspire others in the same way she was. Since graduating from DCU, Duffy has been working steadily as a teacher at her own alma mater, Our Lady's Secondary School , Castleblayney. Fourteen years ago, she was in teachers , Nicola Fahy, play in Monaghan's TG4 All-Ireland SFC final defeat to Cork. In 2020, the duo would line up together in defence in championship games against Tipperary and Duffy smiled: 'She would have taught me in school, so it was nearly nostalgic thinking I was actually getting to play with her then come that late stage.' 1 Jennifer Duffy in action for Monaghan Credit: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
RTÉ News
9 hours ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Can Mayo lift the air of apathy and gloom in Omagh?
"Are we back in Longford?" asked the boys on the Ah Ref podcast the other week. They weren't talking about Center Parcs. Or surveying the majesty of the restored St Mel's Cathedral. Rather, they were referencing that infamous qualifier loss in Pearse Park (or Pearse Brothers Glennon Park as one website once called it) back in 2010, which marked a sorry end to John O'Mahony's often glorious inter-county management career. The Mayo blogger 'An Spailpin Fanach' invoked Ballinamuck in 1798 afterwards, writing that "O'Mahony, like Humbert, had met his Waterloo in Longford." In the days of thunder which followed in the 2010s, the disaster in Longford would often be recalled as a reminder of how far they'd travelled. One possible difference between 2010 and 2025 is that a huge Mayo crowd had descended on the midlands that sunny June evening, evidently not deterred by their shock loss to Sligo in the Connacht championship. There were only 7,000 in attendance at the now infamous loss to Cavan under a fortnight ago, a sign that the Mayo football team are currently in the doghouse with their public, if not the warehouse. Even fewer hung around long enough to see injury-time, with the home supporters streaming out the exits before the end. Some of them were possibly back in their cars in time to hear Martin Carney talking about trying to "climb Everest in the nude". Apathy has taken hold of Mayo football in the past. After the horrid beating against Cork in the 1993 All-Ireland semi-final, the Mayo public decided they'd had enough of it for a while and barely showed up for the subsequent two Connacht finals, both of which were lost. When Mayo were smashed by Galway in the 1995 Connacht final on a baking hot day in Tuam, a few leading players were even of the same mind. Liam McHale was concentrating on basketball that year, where he figured he'd a chance of winning a national title, while Anthony Finnerty had forsaken the game to participate in the Macnas parade in Galway city. As in 2010, this nadir immediately preceded a dramatic revival. John Maughan, who'd listened to the '95 Connacht final on a wireless while on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon, was installed as manager and told McHale and Finnerty they were to report back for duty. This set in train the epic, thrilling journey of 1996, which ultimately wound up kick-starting Mayo's subsequent psychosis around All-Ireland finals. In his last game for Mayo, Finnerty was to the famous Meath brawl what Gavrilo Princip was to the First World War (as determined by the findings of the Spillane Commission). The pre-Maughan slump of the mid-90s was long before 'Mayo for Sam-ism' evolved into a public religion. For well over a decade, the Mayo fanbase has been among the most fanatical and un-ignorable in the country. Their quest for an All-Ireland title had become obsessional and all-consuming, as well as an internet meme. The attitude was best typified by the words of County Council chairman John O'Malley at the sorrowful 2013 All-Ireland final homecoming, when he sent everyone into the night with the defiant roar: "The Americans got Bin Laden, we will get Sam Maguire!" Over the course of the next decade, this encapsulated their mindset as Mayo's elite Navy SEALs team made several daring raids on the Croke Park compound, coming within a whisker of capturing Sam on a couple more occasions, only to be foiled by Jim Gavin's Dubs. At its zenith, the US President had been briefed to roar "Mayo for Sam" from the podium in Ballina. The late Pope had been ambushed with a Mayo jersey at Knock airport. One Mayo man working in this organisation had taken to using the phrase as a standard farewell at all times of the year and regardless of the nature of the conversation that had taken place. It was further evidence that the 'quest for the Holy Grail that's tantalisingly out of reach' fan experience is the most intense and absorbing of all (see also Liverpool fans at the turn of the decade). But that dogged, relentless spirit has been waning in recent years and has probably never recovered from the 2021 All-Ireland final loss. "There's a very specific breakpoint and that was the 2021 All-Ireland final," John Gunnigan of the Mayo GAA blog told the Irish Times ahead of the league final in March. "I think that broke everyone." That certainly tallies with the vibe around Jones' Road that evening, as this correspondent recalls it. In previous years, Mayo supporters had been teary-eyed and heartbroken after All-Ireland final defeats, inclined to lash out at a ref but express pride in the players. But the mood was very different on the night of the 2021 All-Ireland final. Anger had taken hold. The limits of their 'bouncebackability' had finally been reached. It was one defeat too many. This was taking the p*ss. Outside the Savoy takeaway, there was poison in the air and venomous, unprintable comments were flying around. Tyrone fans, never slow to sew it into Kerry supporters after their glorious wins in the 2000s, were almost apologetic and tiptoed around Mayo sensibilities for the night that was in it. It was one thing to fall short against Dublin of the 2010s, quite another to lose to what was perceived as a middling Tyrone team, who had emerged out of leftfield and have done next to nothing in the years since. As time passes, it looks more and more likely that the ill-fated '21 decider will prove to have been the last shot at ultimate glory for that 2010s generation, most of whom have since slipped off into retirement. The Holy Grail is still out there but someone has mislaid the map and the flashlight is beginning to flicker ominously. Kevin McStay, passed over the job in contentious circumstances in late 2014 and who resigned himself to not getting a shot at it, was handed the reins at the end of 2022, right at the moment when it seemed Mayo were headed for a cyclical trough. Lee Keegan called it a day shortly after that, joining Andy Moran and Keith Higgins in retirement. They had some success in the first year, winning the league and eliminating their hotly-tipped neighbours in a preliminary quarter-final in Salthill. However, they flatlined in 2024 and the Connacht title, which McStay won as a manager with Roscommon, has proved frustratingly elusive. Crowds plummeted in the league, with just 6,000 showing up to the nervy home win over Tyrone, a reasonable turnout in anywhere other than Mayo. That they wound up in a league final this year was written off as an accident, something like a computer glitch. There were grumbles about the style of play and Mayo's slowness in adapting to new rules. Ironically, Mayo had embraced the concepts of caution and control right at the moment when the FRC re-wrote the sport. There was an air of extreme despondency that seemed to settle over Mayo following this year's Connacht final defeat, which hit much harder than last year. McStay's face was ashen after the loss; he'd been comparatively chipper after the one-point defeat in 2024. Part of it was down to the unspoken - in fairness, it was spoken in some quarters - perception that Mayo's only realistic chance of championship silverware was gone. In that context, they were acutely psychologically vulnerable to what happened against Cavan the other week. As usual, with results on the pitch gone south, off-field craziness took centre-stage at county board level. There was the jolt of McStay's medical episode which has forced him to take a step back and put things in perspective. While he recovers, Stephen Rochford returns to the hotseat temporarily, seven years after his departure from the role. It wouldn't be unheard of for a team to rally in such circumstances, least of all Mayo. It was a loss to Tyrone which probably brought an end to the 2010s generation's doomed push for a Celtic Cross. Could a win over the same opposition lift them from a low ebb? Watch Dublin v Armagh in the All-Ireland Football Championship on Sunday from 3.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on and the RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Highlights on The Sunday Game at 9.30pm
Irish Examiner
10 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
'We're one of the teams that two years ago the GAA was talking about pulling out'
If you take a look through the Cavan 26 for this afternoon's Lory Meagher Cup final, you'll find 11 starters from the 2021 decider. Cavan lost that final to Fermanagh and for a team on the fifth rung of hurling's championship ladder, holding onto so many key players amounts to impressive retention. Captain Enda Shalvey is one of the 11 and says it's pretty straightforward what has kept them all together, 'unfinished business'. Four years after losing that final to neighbours Fermanagh, Cavan will this time face the novel challenge of New York. "There's a core of guys there who it's probably unfinished business for them to a large extent ," said Shalvey, who has overcome a hamstring niggle to take his own place in defence. "So we're hopefully going to try to rectify that. "People say you have to lose a final to win a final so hopefully that's the case. If you go back to 2021, Fermanagh had been in our shoes and had lost the final previous to that so they were probably better equipped and knew what to expect from playing in a stadium like Croke Park. "Maybe there was an element of fatigue with that final too, from the game the previous weekend. That was a contributing factor as well I'd say. Or maybe we were just a bit overawed by the occasion as well, it's hard to know. "People say, 'Oh but sure isn't it a moral victory to get out playing in Croke Park?' It is at the time but it's four years on now and you want to try to rectify that as best you can." According to the odds, 4/1 shots Cavan have little chance of redemption. New York have 2017 All-Ireland SHC medallist Jonathan Glynn in their ranks, as well as former Cork senior Sean O'Leary Hayes. Tipperary native AJ Willis hit 1-8 on his own against Monaghan in last weekend's semi-final. The feeling is that New York, parachuted into the Lory Meagher Cup competition for the first time this year, at the semi-final stage, may just be too strong for the grade. In reality, the Exiles, managed by Kerry man Richie Hartnett, are an unknown quantity. "You see the headlines and the names and stuff associated with them," said Shalvey. "We're just treating it as another game. I hate putting tags on teams but you have Cavan going in as underdogs so it's maybe no harm to take the pressure off you to an extent. You can kind of go out and perform in the way that we know we're capable of doing, without the pressure maybe." Cavan have their own top talents too. Attacker Nicky Kenny was part of the Cuala team that claimed back-to-back All-Ireland club titles in 2018, netting in that year's final replay win over Na Piarsaigh. Canice Maher is another Kilkenny man with a high skill set now playing for the Breffni. Ahead of him in attack, Sean Keating scored a goal in each of Cavan's first four group games, securing their place in the final with a game to spare. Finishing the job now and claiming the cup, as well as promotion, would amount to a giant shot in the arm for Cavan hurling. "We're one of the teams that two years ago the GAA was talking about pulling out," said Shalvey. "It's hard to put into words what that feeling was like for a team like Cavan. The reality is that we're working out of two or three senior clubs in the county, a limited resource pool, albeit a very committed resource pool, but to get success on a national level would be a huge thing for us, huge."
Irish Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Watch live stream of Cavan v New York in the Lory Meagher Cup final
The Lory Meagher final taces place in Croke Park this weekend as Cavan take on debutants New York. The game throws in at 3pm and there is a place in the Nicky Rackard Cup for the winner. The match is being shown live by TG4 via YouTube and you can watch it live on the video at the top of this article. New York have reached the final in their first ever season in an All-Ireland Senior hurling competition, beating Monaghan by 1-29 to 2-13. Cavan are hoping to put their loss to Leitrim last time out behind them to win the cup. The Exiles previously won the 2024 Connacht Hurling League before being allowed to play in the Lory Meagher Cup after GAA Congress approved the motion. If they win the cup, no team will be relegated from the Nicky Rackard and the current format for Lory Meagher would apply in the Nicky Rackard Cup.
