It’s a big day tomorrow for the Clontarf Ladies football squad as they look to become the first Dublin side to win the All Ireland Intermediate Club title.
Their opponents in Parnell Park tomorrow evening are Monaghan side Emmet Óg. We caught up with Clontarf manager Mick Cronin and captain Sarah Murphy earlier this week in Croke Park to get their views ahead of the game.
Clontarf after suffering the heartache of losing the county final for the previous three years put that all behind them to claim the Dublin title this year.
A new injection of players including some exciting minor talent helped that cause and manager Mick Cronin expressed that there is a really good mix of youth and experience in his side now.
“We’ve the likes of Sarah who’s been here for three losses before we got to win this one and there’s probably seven or eight girls that would have been involved for the last three or four years.”
“And a few new girls came through and a number of minor girls as well, it’s a good mix of girls between 18 and 20 and girls a little more experienced than that let’s say.”
One of the most impressive aspects of the Clontarf team is their forward line and Captain Sarah Murphy said that their ability to take scores gives every player on the team real confidence.
“I think we nearly have more goals than points nowadays but it gives every player on the team such confidence if you kick the ball in there something is going to come from it, so you just have to make a good pass I suppose.”
To date through the Dublin and Leinster championships and the All Ireland semi final Clontarf have racked up a really impressive tally of 44 goals but manager Mick Cronin says goal scoring is not something they have concentrated on.
“I think to be fair to the forwards they are spread amongst three or four girls it’s not just one girl getting the scores and game to game it has changed.”
“Siobhan Killeen has got some, Caoimhe O’Connor has got some Fiona Skelly got goals, Sarah’s got goals so I mean a lot of girls have scored in the team we’ve a good spread of players getting scores, we are not setting out deliberately to get goals but the opportunities are presenting themselves and the girls are taking them when they present themselves.”
We discussed plenty more with Mick and Sarah and you can watch the full interview in the above video