Mighty Mourneabbey shock Donoughmore

Mourneabbey 2-10 Donoughmore 1-8

For the past 11 years the girls of Donoughmore have majestically
graced the football fields of Cork with swashbuckling ease, their
dominance rarely threatened. That proud record is no more, there
were sensationally beaten in the First round of this years Championship
at Mourneabbey on Tuesday night. At a time when there has been
a lot of manoeuvring in clubs adding to their squads, in a transfer
mania, to try and break the Donoughmore grip, it is heartening
that a club with home grown players have been the ones to do it.
Far from adding to their squad they have actually lost a number
of players in recent weeks to the newly formed Mallow club. This
should be a lesson to clubs and a lesson to the County, that you
must build from the bottom up with your own resources not depending
on others to do it for them.

While Con and Jerry O’Sullivan and Co, were over the moon with
their win, they put it in perspective. Winning the Co Senior this
year is not a priority with their young team, which contains 8,
they had 9, but recently lost Jenny Luddy to the new Mallow club,
of the Cork minor team, that take on Galway in the All-Ireland
Semi final on Sunday. Their priority is the All-Ireland Intermediate
title. Donoughmore will still be the team to beat in the championship,
and they are still there with a chance to make it a dozen titles
on the trot.

Mournabbey pay a lot of attention to detail they brought 2 players
back from Dublin for the game while another arrived back in the
country an hour before the game. Donoughmore dominated the opening
half and thanks to a goal in the 7th minute from Cork Capt Juliet
Murphy they opened a 1-5 to 0-5 interval lead their points coming
from Aisling O’Connor, Catriona O’Connell, Ruth Ann Buckley, Kathleen
O’Brien kept Mourneabbey in touch with super points. With Siobhan
Forde and Eva O’Donoghue contributing as well. Massive effort.
Morenabbey put in a massive effort in the 2nd half. Ciara O’Sullivan
and Sheila O’Callaghan got on top at midfield, the defence marshalled
by Kathy Ann Stack, Patricia Murphy and Kathyrn Coakley in particular
put the shackles on their illustrious opponents. The forwards
with some close interpassing play did the rest. Laura Harington
struck the first major blow netting in the 41st minute, Siobhan
Forde added 2 points and the Abbey were in full flow. Shelia O’Callaghan
virtually put them out of sight with another goal, but there was
still 18 minutes to go and the large crowd were anticipating a
Donoughmore revival but it never came, all they could manage was
3 points in the 2nd period.

A new era had dawned for Mourrneabbey and it certainly will not
be a false dawn, for a club which has worked its way all the way
up to the very top and for this they are an inspiration and an
example to every other club of what can be done.

Scorers for Mourneabbey: Siobhan Forde and Kathleen O’Brien 0-3
each, Laura Harrington and Sheila O’Callaghan 1-0 each, Eva O’Donoughue
0-2 frees and Michelle Browne 0-1.

Scorers for Donoughmore: Juliet Murphy 1-2 (0-2 frees), Ruth A
Buckley 0-2, Anne M O’Shea, Aisling O’Connor, Catriona O’Connell,
and Rena Buckley 0-1 each.

Mourneabbey: E Forde; E Harrington, CA Stack, R Larkin; P Murphy,
K Coakley, S Conroy; S O’Callaghan, C O’Sullivan; R O’Sullivan,
S Forde, K O’Brien; E O’Donoghue, L Harrington, M Browne.

Donoughmore: T Rodgers; E Walsh, S O’Connell, L Barrett; A Barrett,
C Moran, V Sheehan; J Muprhy, G O’Connor; AM O’Shea, A O’Connor,
C O’Connell; R Buckley, L Muprhy, RA Buckley. Subs: R Cogan for
A O’Connor (HT; inj).