Canavan ecstatic after Carlow finally get over the line

Carlow captain Niamh Canavan cut an ecstatic figure as she spoke to The Nationalist after Carlow were crowned Leinster Intermediate Champions. After all, they have suffered a lot of pain over the last few years, they’ve been so close but haven’t been able to get over the line. They’ve suffered a lot of pain so this meant a lot to Canavan who has been part of this team for quite a while.

“It’s unbelievable, like I said [in her speech], we set a goal to win the Leinster Intermediate Championship, and we’ve achieved that, so it’s incredible. Especially when we went down a point, to get the win, it’s an unbelievable feeling.

“We’ve had a few of them [where they’ve had to come back], and before we probably would have died down but today we just kept things ticking over, we got the goal, we were probably a bit lucky with it and then tacked on another point to win by four which was impressive.

“I’m really proud of the girls. It's so special, it really is. This is something we really wanted to win and to get the win is amazing, we're just delighted.” 

Eleanor Treacy scored the winning goal in stoppage time, her effort from the left sailing in. She said she took a calculated risk. 

“Never [aiming for the goal], I was 60/70 yards out, I said go straight at least, don't let it go wide, there's something of a lull that comes after a wide, it was about getting it into the square, and it’ll get messy but something will come of it and in it went.

“For sure [it was a special feeling to get that goal], one I'll hold onto, it'll take a while to sink in, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday I'll reflect on it, but for now I'm just grateful.” 

Canavan also weighed in on the issue that has been dominating headlines across the week, the shorts vs skorts debate, saying that it was important to support their fellow Camogie players but that they didn't want it to distract from the match.

“It's been disappointing at times, but we'll back our fellow Camogie players and we can only hope common sense will prevail next week after Special Congress. We just tried to not get too distracted by it and just focus on the game, and we really did that so we're delighted and hopefully common sense will prevail.”