Dowdallshill and St. Brides prepare for Louth Intermediate Final

Dowdallshill will be aiming to go one step further than 12 months ago when despite a fine showing they lost out to St.Kevins at the final hurdle when they take on St.Brides in the Intermediate final on Sunday. The Newry Road side turned on an excellent performance when seeing off the challenge of Nh.Martin in the semi-final recently. Their manager Tomas O’Connor made a shrewd move by bringing the vastly experienced Micheal Heaney on to his management team recently. The Clan na Gael man was in charge when Louth played their first National League match in 1993 and has coached Ladies club sides in Monaghan, Armagh and Louth. Their opponents Brides were also in fine form in their semi-final as they beat St.Patricks in an impressive 5-13 to 4-11 victory with all 6 of their starting forwards getting on the scoresheet.

Last years Junior champions possess the near perfect mixture of youth and experience as Edel McKeown, Sharon Callan, Karen Rafferty and Maree Brennan who will be captain on Sunday are holders of Senior Championship medals won with the now disbanded Naomh Malachi club. The management of David Hoey, Irene Brennan and Fra Fagan will also have Caoimhe Hoey available having returned from spending the summer in Boston.  Rising stars Amy McNally now a regular starter on the county team and Sara Fagan as well as the likes Aishling Ruddy and Sarah Kieran are others capable of causing plenty of problems for the ‘Hill backline who will need to be on their toes to keep the Knockbridge attackers at bay.

Dowdallshill themselves wont lack experience on the big day as this will be their fourth final appearance in seven years. Having lost to the Geraldines in the Junior decider in 2007 they were back in the final two years later as they beat St.Fechins in the Clans. They will look to their own county representatives Una Pearson and Emma Singleton as well as the 2012 Supporters club player of the year the talented  Ciara O’Connor. A cracking contest is in store in what is sure to be closely contested tie with both sides having potential match winners in many positions. It may well be about which ever back unit can cope best with the opposing forwards because both sets of forwards are capable of putting up a big score.