St Anne’s U16 camogie team won the Division 4 Championship with victory over St Patricks of Palmerstown
St Anne’s U16s celebrate league success
ST ANNES U16 Camogie team won the Division 4 championship last weekend with a victory against St Patricks Palmerstown in the League final with a very close game ending with a 1-11 to 3-10 scoreline in favour of St Annes.
The match was 1-08 to 1-05 with Annes trailing at half time. An excellent second half performance which saw them score 4 unanswered scores led to Annes dragging their noses in front with Alyson Kelly’s last minute goal securing the win for St Annes.
We spoke to longtime manager of the team Patrick Swain who spoke about the achievements of the team.
“They got promoted last year from Division 5 and now they are after winning 4.
‘They handled it well, to be honest that U16 group is effectively our U15 team playing a year up with only two girls who would have been actual 2009 players.
‘Pretty much all of these girls play U15 camogie on a Saturday and then play U16 camogie on a Sunday.”
When asked if so much playing time could be detrimental to his players Swain firmly disagreed.
“I find certainly with the camogie, playing two games in a weekend helps greatly.
‘Particularly with camogie and hurling you want to be getting touches on the ball, you want to be playing and striking the ball every day.
‘Playing a match and playing a match a day later, I found it beneficial with the group. There’s only so many nights you can train but if you have two games at the weekend it brings them on greatly.”
Training together under the instruction of Patrick Swaine and Joseph Byrne, the team will be jumping up to Minor level next year with the squad initially being formed at nursery age.
“It’ll be minor next year but I’m very confident in that group and they’ll be supplemented by a few second year minors who are playing on the adult team at the minute. So there will be a few additions to that group.”
Special mentions go to Alyson Kelly, Laragh Fogarty, Eimear Holmes, Isabelle Lawlor and Eimear Swain who all performed excellently throughout the final and the season as a whole as well as management team Patrick Swain, Joseph Byrne and Darragh Holmes.
