Emotions overflow as Carlow finally break semi-final hoodoo

Not quite in tears but certainly Sara Doyle’s voice was breaking with emotion as she attempted to describe what this win meant for her.

“No, I can’t believe it. I am getting emotional. We have lost so many semi-finals over the years. Just to get over the line. This is my seventh year. I didn’t play last year. We got to four or five All-Ireland semi-finals and lost them all,” the St Brigids club player articulated.

If ever a Carlow team were favourites to win an All-Ireland championship game, this team was. They had beaten Derry twice already this season. Yet, some of what Carlow did in the first half hurt them. Particularly dropping ball into the Derry goalkeeper, Thomasina Cassidy’s, hands “I think it was more excitement. I think we knew it was our game to lose. The feelings before in other dressing rooms were worry and being scared. I don’t think any of us were scared today. We might have been a bit nervous. That was a good thing I suppose.” 

When did Carlow only score two points in 27 minutes? Surely not in recent years? Doyle says there was an edge to the performance which was not good but they overcame it.

“We were a bit nervous and a bit wary at the start. That first goal settled us. We really drove on then. Once we got a bit of momentum there was nothing stopping us. We are such a good team. We work so well together. It is a special group and once we got that goal that was it and we were not going to let Derry stop us.” Ruth Bermingham, the Bennekerry-Tinryland, player who was a key figure in the club’s All-Ireland success two years ago, didn’t mind the suggestion that her club’s win has helped the county effort.

“At half-time, I said to the girls, there was too much talent in the dressing room for some of those girls not to get a day out in Croke Park in their careers. That is genuinely from the bottom of my heart. There are some of those girls from Old Leighlin that I have been in All-Ireland semi-finals with. Honestly. Top-talent. They are too talented not to get that day and that day has finally come. It is an emotional day for a lot of us,” she revealed.

Bermingham noted areas where Carlow struggled but is certain they can improve.

“It was very frantic in the first 25 minutes. We hadn’t played like that all year. We needed to gather, settle things and bring it back to what worked for us in the last 16 games. Try to implement what we have been doing on the training ground,” she pointed out.

“There were opportunities there which we haven’t been missing all season and we missed them. I thought we played a lot better in terms of being relaxed but we really needed to be putting them over. That will be crucial in the All-Ireland final.” When Brendan Hennessy suggested to Roisin Bailey, the team captain, that she had guided her side into an All-Ireland final the midfielder was quick to admonish the well-known and popular commentator.

“There are fifteen leaders on the field at every single time and there are even more leaders in that dressing room who come on and finish the job. You saw that with Megan Townsend who had the composure to finish that goal.

It is just an honour for me to say I am captain of the team but I am just so proud of the girls,” she said as she spoke about where the game was won and lost.

“We had a really slow start. I suppose semi-finals do that and we spoke about nerves in the dressing room beforehand. I suppose nerves do that to you. You try to make them into a good thing. Sometimes they can sap your energy a bit and we felt that a bit in the first half.” 

Carlow needed a break and Bailey felt they got it with the hat-trick of three-pointers. Going to Croke Park with players who fight for each other is the ultimate award for the skipper.

“When the first goal went in, you could feel a lift in the team. Two more followed shortly after and going in at half-time with those three goals gave us a really good base to build upon from in the second half.

“I have been the happiest captain all year with these girls. That group of girls, I cannot speak highly enough of them, they are absolutely incredible. They are my best friends.”