Dunne stars as Galway wininaugural Kate Moran Cup

By Kevin Egan

PERHAPS it was written in the stars, or perhaps the sadly missed Athenry player wrote it in the stars for them, but the Galway U-16s became the first group to lift the Kate Moran Cup on Saturday evening in Birr, in no small part because of how they clearly took on board far more of the lessons from the drawn game a week previous.

Kate was at the forefront of so many thoughts once Maeve Cronin’s late point effectively guaranteed Galway’s back-to-back All-Ireland victory at this grade, and manager Brian Griffin was quick to make reference to how much it meant to this Galway group as a whole to honour her legacy by claiming this trophy.

“Just thinking of the Moran family there, it’s brilliant that the cup is coming back to Galway in the first year of it being inaugurated,” he said afterwards, before mentioning the main reason why his team prevailed in a battle between two sides that had been inseparable the week before.

“We’re delighted, it was a brilliant performance from the girls, they dug deep, they fought hard, they learned lessons from the first day to close down a lot of space.”

And there it was. There were parallels to the draw in that Ruby Norris and Rachael Duff were huge threats, albeit the latter started well but was marshalled tightly by Katelyn Hynes after that.

However, after scoring 1-9 in all, 1-4 from play, in the draw, Kate Dalton and Dearbhla Ryan scored one free and one from play between them here. Kilkenny played with Amy Walsh as a sweeper to try and open up space for their dynamic duo, but instead that allowed Sarah Maher to patrol the bottom third of the pitch with vigilance and discipline, adding the extra bit of support that corner-backs Aoife Lawlor and Kate Melville needed to really thrive.

Galway parked that bit deeper and invited Kilkenny to attack them through the running game from the middle. Rachael Duff made that count when she powered in from the left wing to get an early goal, but just when Galway might have been vulnerable, Grace Roche won a scrappy ball between two defenders and got her shot away, and a late dip on the sliotar meant her effort crept just under the crossbar.

Playing into a crowded defence and against the wind, Galway knew that they just needed to contain Kilkenny up to half-time to be in the driving seat, and that they did. There were no soft frees conceded, there was plenty of digging and driving at midfield and this was never a freescoring game, but even so, 1-7 to 1-6 to Kilkenny after 30 wind-assisted minutes for the Cats was a dream scenario for Galway.

A mere point each was added in the first 18 minutes of the second half, Galway’s score a haymaker from 60 metres out from Katie Brogan, but defensive pressure was the name of the game, there were seven wides in this quarter in a game with just 14 overall, and tension was mounting in what was a decent-sized crowd in sunshine and wind at Birr.

Then Eva Harkin floated a shot into the Kilkenny goalmouth and it wasn’t held at the first attempt by Robyn Corcoran. Orna Dunne, now operating in the full-forward line, was up against two defenders but she won the break and whipped the ball inside the right-hand post on the turn, and suddenly Galway had Kilkenny on the ropes.

Dunne showed her value with the next point and then a key role in setting up a point for Harkin. Suddenly there was daylight.

“Orna was out at half-forward in the first half, she was probably struggling a bit physically, but we knew that in the full-forward line, one ball in would do it for Orna,” said Griffin. “Every day she goes out, she gets goals. She’s just that kind of a character.”

Norris and Elizabeth Sida continued to battle ferociously for Kilkenny, but Galway now had the liberty to drop very deep to protect their lead and their All-Ireland, and with Kilkenny chasing a goal, that played into their hands.

Maeve Cronin added the last point when she fired at goal and had her effort brilliantly touched over the bar by Heidi Culleton, but at that stage, going into injury-time, a five-point lead was enough.

“To go in at half-time a point down and to be able to play with the breeze in the second half was a source of huge momentum for us,” said Griffin. “It wasn’t as good in the second half, but we got there in the end.”

For Galway, for Griffin, and to give the Kate Moran Cup the perfect start, getting there was all that mattered.