All Ireland Minor Semi-Final

  • Jul 16,2014

Minor All Ireland Semi-Final

Dublin v Galway

Saturday July 19th, 2pm

St Brendans Park, Birr

 

The Dublin Minor team return to competitive action this weekend when they travel to St Brendans Park in Birr to play reigning champions Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final with a place in the 2014 decider versus either Cork or Cavan up for grabs.

 

Dublin last played a competitive game 10 weeks ago when back on the 5th of May, Conor Barry’s chargers out gunned a hapless Westmeath side by 7-12 to 0-02 to lift the Leinster title for a 4th year in a row.

 

Saturday’s fixture will be a repeat of the 2013 final replay which Galway won in dramatic fashion with two late goals scored in the 66th and 68th minute.

 

Galway will go into Saturday’s encounter as firm favourites owing to the fact that the majority of the 2013 victorious Galway panel are eligible again for minor football whereas Dublin has just 4 players who lined out against Galway on the 14th of August last, available for minor this year.   

 

Captain Aoife Curran along with defenders Muireann Ní Scanaill and Katie Murray plus forward Leah Mullins will be required to call upon all of their experience if Dublin are to beat Galway to reach their 4th consecutive minor final.

 

Dublin lost out to Cork in 2011 only to bounce back the following year to defeat Tyrone but then surrendered their minor title to Galway in 2013.

 

The Tribes women have been quite impressive throughout their Connacht championship campaign racking up an unbelievable tally of 29-69 in their 3 games en route to retaining their Provincial crown, beating Mayo in the final by 5-19 to 1-09.

 

Three Galway players to keep an eye on will be the dashing forward Olivia Divilly along with sisters Nicola and Louise Ward. All 3 are current members of the Galway senior panel who recently won the Connacht title for a third consecutive year.

 

The aforementioned Ward sisters have been especially impressive this season for Galway at senior level. Nicola was named as the TESCO Homegrown Player of the Match in Galway’s NFL div 2 league win over Westmeath earning her a place on the Div 2 Team of the League. While Louise popped up to score 3 crucial points from corner forward in the senior Connacht final versus Mayo.  

 

Dublin will name their starting 15 to face Galway on Friday afternoon, team manager Conor Barry will once more have to plan without the services of Fiona Tuite and Doireann Mullany both of whom have been unavailable over the last few months due to injury.

 

Mullany picked up a dreaded ACL knee injury while lining out for Colaiste Iosagain’s in their PPS All Ireland final win over Colaiste Dun Iascaigh while Tuite fractured two bones in her ankle during a shot putt training session.

 

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