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Irish Times
06-08-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Senior the goal but intermediate the focus for Kerry ahead of All-Ireland camogie decider
Kerry captain Patrice Diggin says she would love to get a chance to play at senior level if they can win Sunday's All-Ireland intermediate camogie final against Offaly. With Kerry one game away from playing at the top level, Diggin says her side are at a crossroads. 'We really do have to take the opportunity when it comes. We would love to get up to senior and give it a go, and see where we really are at. 'A few of us are pushing on, it gets harder and harder every year as you're getting older. I suppose if we lose on Sunday, it's going to be a hard place to come back to next year.' READ MORE However, a tough Offaly side stands in their way, the Faithful County having pipped Antrim in the semi-final by a point. Diggin says her side are totally focused on Sunday, rather than the possibilities that a win could open up. 'We're not really a team to think, to dwell', she explains. 'When you're in the final your focus is on that match, on Offaly. The 60 minutes is your focus and you have to hope that at the end you're on the right side of it. 'You try to just ignore all the external factors, because if you're thinking about that you're not thinking about the game.' Kerry beat down in their semi-final, the Ulster county having been relegated from senior last year, while Offaly triumphed over last year's the other demoted side, Antrim. Diggin believes the standard of the intermediate championship is high, with little to separate the teams. 'The other teams that are intermediate, any one could have been here probably because there's only a puck of a ball between us. 'Last year we were probably unlucky to lose the semi-final to Kilkenny. We probably felt like we should have done it in normal time and were pipped.' Diggin has very good memories of Croke Park, having been player of the match in the Kingdom's 2019 junior triumph, their first such title. She has also led her club, Clanmaurice, to two All-Ireland intermediate titles in 2023 and 2024. Speaking at Croke Park on Tuesday ahead of the weekend's triple header at GAA HQ, Diggin admits she's chomping at the bit for Sunday: 'I've been looking out on to the pitch and just wanting to get out there now and start the game if possible.' With the semi-finals played four weeks ago, both teams have had a chance to recover and build back up for the decider, but Diggin laughs that the month off might actually have been too long a break. 'You'd nearly have forgotten that you're in an All-Ireland final,' she jokes, 'but you have to, otherwise your head would be completely fried. 'We've trained hard the last two weeks, and last weekend then, Sunday morning, you realise that was your last Sunday morning session. So, yeah, it's a great time for the team.'
Irish Examiner
08-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Mayo set up All-Ireland minor semi-final with Kerry after goalfest victory over Offaly
Electric Ireland All-Ireland MFC Quarter-Final Mayo 3-13 (3-2-9) Offaly 4-7 (4-0-7) Mayo will be Kerry's opponents in the All-Ireland minor semi-final in a fortnight after they just about held off a powerful second half-surge from Offaly in Roscommon this afternoon, kicking the last three scores to secure the win just when it looked like the Faithful County had produced yet another miracle comeback. Over the course of the hour, Mayo were marginally the better team, despite the absence of leading corner forward Tony Carey and midfielder Cian May - though they came dangerously close to losing their way when they tried to defend their lead rather than pushing on and driving home their advantage in the second half. With Offaly supporters outnumbering their Mayo counterparts by nearly ten to one, it was easy to see why they would try and stifle the midlanders and defend their nine-point interval advantage, though when Mayo were at their best, they were scintillating. They ransacked the Offaly defence to score 2-6 unanswered in the 20 minutes before half-time. In every aspect of play, they were running riot, and causing Offaly a world of problems. The start of the game saw Ben Holmes set up Conor Hession for a goal, but Offaly replied well, employing an all-out attack approach. Every free was tapped and run at the Mayo defence, every attacker wanted to take on and beat his man, and that yielded a fine goal for Ruairí Woods and some well-taken points from Tony Furey, Dylan Dunne and Cathal Weldon. However throughout the year, long spells of playing second fiddle in the kickout battle have haunted Offaly, and that again was to come to the fore here as Mayo starved the Offaly attack of ball and unleashed wave after wave of their own attacks. Adam Kelly, an injury doubt leading up to the game, was dominant in the middle but the real star of the show was Dara Flanagan, operating at centre-forward. The Eastern Gaels man scored 1-3 in all, 1-2 in the first half, and created real danger every time he took possession. His tap and go free down the right set up another goal for Conor Coghill through the middle of the Offaly defence, and Mayo could easily have added to their 3-7 to 1-4 half-time lead, with Rhys Neary firing over the bar with the goal at his mercy and three wides in the closing minutes keeping the lead down to single digits. The physical presence of Hession and Ben Holmes was also a threat, and when Mayo used the breeze to hit their two big men, they created chaos and chances, with Holmes adding two points of his own. However that threat was removed for the second half, and Mayo's running game also dried up. As they did for the Leinster final, the Offaly supporters travelled in big numbers for this fixture and a crucial part of Mayo's gameplan for the second half would have been to remove the crowd as a factor in the contest. A goal from Furey at the start of the second half threatened to throw that plan out the window but Mayo overcame that setback and monopolised possession for long stretches, holding the ball for two and three minutes at a time on several occasions. More often than not however, no scoring chances materialised at the end of those possessions, albeit that didn't matter as long as Offaly weren't scoring at the other end. Then the midlanders won a turnover, Caden O'Beirne played the ball down the line to Cian McNamee, and the Rhode man beat his marker along the end line and squeezed in a goal from an impossible angle. The crowd came alive, and after the two sides traded points, another goal, this time from Dylan Dunne, sent the Faithful into raptures. They had the wind at their backs, the nine-point lead was fully wiped out, and after Eamon Maher made an incredible mark, he was dragged down, Tony Furey tapped over the free, and they had all the momentum and energy. That all changed on the next kickout when Eoghan Dever fielded the ball, he too was tackled, and Conor Hession traversed the black spot on the crossbar with as important a kick as he'll ever have taken in his young career so far. Offaly still had to chase the game and they did exactly that, but three chances went astray, the closest being Aaron Daly hitting the post from 35 metres out, and as they grew increasingly desperate, gaps opened up at the other end for Ben Joyce and Oran Murphy to add the insurance points and see Mayo through to a semi-final clash with the Kingdom. Scorers for Mayo: C Hession 1-5 (2tpf, 0-1f), D Flanagan 1-3, C Coghill 1-0, B Holmes 0-2 (0-1m, 0-1f), R Neary 0-1, B Joyce 0-1, O Murphy 0-1. Scorers for Offaly: T Furey 1-4 (0-2f), R Woods 1-1, D Dunne 1-1, C McNamee 1-0, C Weldon 0-1. MAYO: T Williams; C Coghill, B Langan, C Tighe; R O'Donnell, D Duffy, E Dever; A Kelly, P Garvey; R Neary, D Flanagan, C Jordan; F Ó Cinnseala, B Holmes, C Hession. Subs: O Murphy for Holmes (40), F Ó Cinnseala for Neary (47), O McCann for Fiachra Ó Cinnseala (51), B Joyce for Garvey (54) OFFALY: J Ryan; C O'Beirne, T Carroll, C Farrell; P Duffy, T Kelly, E Rouse; E Maher, C Duffy; C Weldon, D Dunne, A Daly; T Furey, C McNamee, R Woods. Subs: D Stewart for Weldon (47), C Duffy for Furey (54), D Stoyanov for Carroll (57) Referee: Alan Coyne (Westmeath).
