Queens dethrone O’Connor Cup champions | Stephen Barry

Queens University 2-11UCC 1-13 (AET)This year’s O’Connor Cup proved to be a landmark moment for ladies college sport as the final became the first ladies intervarsity to be broadcast live on TV. However UCC did not manage to emulate the TV appearances of their Fitzgibbon and Sigerson colleagues, as they lost out in Friday’s semi-finals to Queens University.Queens came into the finals weekend as rank outsiders however they reversed their first-round loss to the Leesiders before hammering Dublin giants DCU in the televised final, 4-10 to 1-9.Speaking after the weekend in WIT, UCC manager Shane Ronayne felt the disappointment was heightened by the fact that Queens won the final so comfortably after beating his star-studded team: “When you look back on it, it wasn’t such a bad campaign; there isn’t any shame in being beaten by a point by the eventual champions. But we’d still be very disappointed because of the panel we have; we were down there to win it. We’re all fairly devastated at the moment.“Because they won so easily it hit us harder because we felt it should have been us there, but who’s to know; in the final you never know what’s going to happen. That was a surprise in the final because people would have been expecting DCU to win it after Queens had beaten us. But there wasn’t much consolation now seeing them win it.”Another disappointment was the missed opportunity to make it onto TV in the nationally televised final: “It was great [that the final was on TV], but we were just so disappointed that we weren’t on it. UCC would have been on the three televised finals [Fitzgibbon, Sigerson and O’Connor Cup] if we’d have got there. Having it on TG4 is definitely going to raise the profile of it and maybe next year we can get to that final on TG4.”Having lead by eight points to seven after a tit-for-tat first half, it looked like UCC would grab that national stage for their title defence this year as, ten minutes from time, UCC took a decisive three-point lead thanks to an Orlagh Farmer tap-in goal after a running move from a quickly taken free. That goal came in the middle of Aoife Lyons’ period in the sin-bin, however UCC, with good defensive performances from Elanor Ahern and Cáit Lynch, held that lead until the final seconds of injury time. At that point Queens’ captain Sinéad McCleary launched a Garryowen into the penalty area and her midfield partner, Cáitlín Malone rose above Samantha Lambert to punch the ball past the excellent Elaine Dee for a 1-10 apiece draw in normal time.Then inside the first two minutes of the extra twenty, Queens got their second three-pointer; Áine Canavan’s point-attempt fell short and a back-peddling Dee was forced to push the ball out to the predatory Louise Kelly who half-volleyed the ball home.UCC rallied in the second period of extra-time with Valerie Mulcahy and Farmer, who was named on the Colleges All-Star team alongside Lynch, central to UCC’s scores, but they came up a point short in spite of Niamh McKernan’s late sin-binning for the victors.Ronayne was quick to give credit for the victory to Queens’ defensive system which saw them utilise a sweeper to stifle UCC’s prolific attack for long periods of the game:“The second half became a bit of a dogfight. Scores were very hard to get because they were so defensively set-up and they were playing with a bit of a wind. We got the goal and we went ahead and we thought we were going to hold on; but it was a bit of a cruel blow with the last kick of the game.“They had a system of play and it upset our game. We reacted a bit too late because we tried something different in extra-time and it worked; if we’d tried it earlier on in the game it might have been a bit more successful. They’re very organised in fairness to them – they’re a good team.”That defensive emphasis in turn created space up front for the quick breaks by the Belfast ladies and that effect was magnified with Lyons’ sin-binning which contributed to UCC tiring against a very fit side. It was this sum of these little things which Ronayne felt turned the game against the Cork women, including the injuries which hampered his side’s preparations for the weekend with Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh, Megan O’Connell and Kelley Hackett all carrying knocks, while cruciate-victim Ciara O’Sullivan has been a long-term absentee.But while the favourites return to the banks of the Lee empty-handed, they have nevertheless helped achieve one of Ronayne’s secondary goals of promoting the sport within the college over the course of the past two years:“There’s been a huge interest in it at the moment in the college and I suppose that’s one of the other things we try to do, raise the awareness of it by winning it last year. We’ve great support there from John Grainger and everyone involved and because Cork ladies football is so strong, it’s good to have UCC being strong as well. It’s a big college and we should be competing at the top level of the ladies football colleges’ competitions. We’ve raised the profile alright and hopefully we can keep it going next year and the year after.”Queens: K Daly (Armagh); L Sharvin (Down), N McAnulla (Tyrone), S Marley (Armagh); N McKernan 0-1, T McLaughlin, C Scullion (all Tyrone); S McCleary 0-4fs, C Malone 1-0; D Morgan, F McKenna 0-1 (all Armagh), R Kearney 0-1 (Westmeath); L McCann, M Cooper 0-3, 1f (both Antrim), L Kelly 1-1 (Tyrone).Subs: A Canavan (Tyrone) for McCann 26, T McCusker (Tyrone) for McKernan 52, McKernan for Canavan 70, K McLisker (Antrim) for Cooper 78.UCC: E Dee; A Hayes (both Cork), S Lambert (Tipperary), A Lyons (Kerry); E Ahern (Cork), C Lynch (Kerry), L Williams; K Hackett (Tipperary), A Taylor (Laois); O Farmer 1-2 (Cork), L Ní Mhuircheartaigh 0-3fs (Kerry), A O'Sullivan; V Mulcahy 0-7, 4fs (both Cork), M O'Connell 0-1 (Kerry), T McGuire (Cork).Subs: M O'Donovan (Cork) for McGuire 39, C Walsh (Waterford) for Williams 49, A O'Leary (Cork) for Hackett 49, K O'Dea (Cork) for Ní Muircheartaigh 60+2, Ní Muircheartaigh for O'Dea et.