Noone: 'We just knew this year there was something special'

Wing-back savours Brendan Martin Cup final success with Galway

A FIVE-TIME All-Ireland winner with her club and now, at last, a first-time All-Ireland winner with her county.

At just 24, Hannah Noone has packed unimaginable success into her career with Kilkerrin-Clonberne and Galway. More than any ladies footballer could realistically dream of.

Sunday was a day when the game's biggest prize of all, the Brendan Martin Cup, went from an obsession into the team's possession as the Tribeswomen scored a 2-7 to 0-12 victory over Kerry at Croke Park.

"Everyone always says they'd love to win it with their club, and we've done that. All we wanted was to win with our county. It felt like we might never get that. We just always seemed to fall at the last hurdle," Noone told Herald Sport outside the winning dressing-room.

"We just knew this year there was something special. The bond of the group was so good. Every single one of them are like my best friends, so I'm just so happy."

Before Sunday, Galway had defeated Meath, Tyrone, Mayo and Armagh by an average margin of 16 points. Their attacking output dipped markedly with Leanne Coen goals in either half camouflaging a low success rate on point attempts.

One constant throughout their season, though, was an ability to stifle the opposition's attack and that was again on display as a prolific Kingdom outfit, spearheaded by one of the front-runners for Player of the Year in O'Shea, was restricted.

Noone paid tribute to Galway's defensive excellence and, in particular, the roles played by captain Kate Geraghty, Sarah Lynch and Brónagh Quinn behind her.

"It took her up until the last quarter to get going when she really had to. That's the sort of player Síofra is. But our full-back line have been unbelievable all year. You nearly know when the ball goes in behind that they're going to come out with it. You can trust them so much to do their job one-on-one."

This Galway team has been schooled in hard knocks. Defeat to Kerry in the 2024 All-Ireland final was a chastening experience. Noone wasn't involved that season but was when they went so close in '25, suffering a devastating semi-final loss to eventual winners Dublin after extra-time.

The county has never won a Division 1 title - this spring's final loss to Cork another source of regret - and it posed legitimate questions over whether the current crop of players, All-Ireland favourites from the season's outset, would have their day. What made the difference, in Noone's view?

"Just maybe the little things that in other years would have let us down, like letting goals in. We didn't let in any goal today and Kerry carry such a goal threat. So, I think stopping that was nearly our main aim. We probably stopped our great attacking flowing play because we were trying to quieten them down. It was just so up and down, it was nearly hard to get into our attack shape, but it still worked out.

"Other games, like last year in the semi-final, things didn't go our way. Sometimes you just have to be on that side of the good luck for these days to go your way.

"With the league final, we maybe took it for granted that we could beat Cork and we didn't win. Maybe it was good for us that we didn't win because we knew we still had to work on things. That we aren't unbeatable and we can still push on and there's more things we can do. I think that stood to us in a way that we didn't win, even though we would have loved to have won it."

To wrap up, what about Galway's moment of coronation? The 58th minute score that pushed them over the top as Hannah's raid up the right flank ended with an assist for her younger sister, Eva, who cleared the Kerry crossbar with the winning point off her trusty left boot.

"I passed to her, and I was like, 'Oh God, Eva, will you get this?' 'You better get it'. And it just curled in at the right post. Oh my God, brilliant."

A score to treasure on a day to treasure.