‘We’ve got to stay at the top of our game’
By Stephen Leonard
DUBLIN’S Olwen Carey believes the Jackies can ill-afford to take their foot off the pedal if they are to remain the biggest force in senior ladies football.
The Thomas Davis star helped the Blues to their second straight All-Ireland Championship title after they beat long-time nemesis, Cork 3-11 to 1-12 in Sunday’s decider in Croke Park.
Yet, she insists that they cannot let up if they are to have any hope of establishing a legacy on a par with what Cork have managed in recent years.
“We’ve still got a young team with players who have a lot of experience from the last five years,” Carey told The Echo.
“We know we have to keep on working hard because the standard of ladies football is constantly improving so we’ve got to stay at the top of our game.
“Ladies football is in a very good place right now. There are probably four or more teams that could be up there next season.
“Cork are definitely still a good team and I’m sure they’ll be back. And you have the likes of Mayo, Donegal and others who are getting better all the time,” she said.
Still, Carey is now savouring Dublin’s superb achievement of back-to-back All-Ireland honours for the very first time.
Having suffered the pain of defeat at the hands of Cork in three consecutive All-Ireland finals between 2014 and ’16, it has made the taste of success over the past two seasons all the more sweet.
Beating Mayo in last season’s showpiece, Dublin will be even more satisfied to have seen off the Leesiders on their final step to this year’s prize.
“It was great for all the players after all the work we’ve put in over the last year, over the last two years,” said Carey.
“Winning any All-Ireland is a great feeling, but I suppose to beat Cork, after having lost to them in previous finals, was special.
“Last year there was that feeling of relief, that we’d finally won it. This year we were just so happy to win it, that all the work we’d put in paid off and that we made it back-to-back All-Irelands,” she added.
Playing in front of more that 50,000 spectators on Sunday, Dublin and Cork played out a great battle in which the defending champions carved out a four-point halftime thanks in no small measure to goals from Carla Rowe and captain Sinéad Aherne.
Both Carey and her Thomas Davis clubmate Siobhan McGrath turned in rock solid performances, with the latter helping choke off much of the Cork threat while Carey was instrumental in getting Dublin on the front foot.
Newcastle woman Ciara Trant had to be on her toes in goal and proved very sound under the high ball.
Cork did start the second half well and were never really out of it, but when Rowe hit the back of the net for a second time, Dublin were well on their way to victory.
“There were patches in the game where Cork were on top, particularly at the start of the second half, but we’ve learned over the last couple of years how to deal with things when they’re not perhaps going our way,” said Carey.
“It was about how we reacted. We kept our composure, kept creating chances and we knew if we continued to do that we could win,” she said.
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