Limerick U14 ladies footballers make history by reaching two Munster finals

IT’S a historic weekend for ladies football in Limerick as the county’s U14 team will contest both the Munster ‘A’ and ‘B’ finals in the same year for the very first time.

Both the Limerick ‘Green’ and ‘White’ teams also defeated Kerry en route to their deciders on Easter Weekend.

Cork are the opposition for both line-ups with the ‘B’ final on Saturday at 4pm and the Munster U14 ‘A’ final at 12 noon on Sunday.

Both games take place in Mallow.

The girls, who have trained under joint managers Ross O’Neill and Kevin O'Connor twice a week since December, had Limerick senior hurling manager John Kiely in to give a motivational talk in the days leading up to the big games.

Both competitions saw the Limerick sides play each of the other five Munster counties in a blitz format with the ‘Green’ team and the ‘White’ team both claiming four wins out of five - and both beating the Kingdom in the process.

Joint manager O’Neill pointed out how his group are “punching above their weight” as they prepare to face the ‘Rebels’ - who had up to 900 players at their first trials. Limerick in comparison had just under 200 - a number that still represents the growth of ladies football in the county.

Supporting O’Neill and O'Connor in the backroom team are Graham O’Connell, Joe Teefy, Fergal O’Donoghue and Olivia Fitzgerald. The FLOs supporting the team are Caroline O’Neill, Vera Downey and Mairead McCarthy.

The girls will be looking to follow in the footsteps of Limerick legend Dymphna O'Brien who won a Munster U14 ‘A’ title in a career that saw her become the county’s first ever ladies football All-Star.

As well as the Munster blitzes, Limerick also played challenge matches against Galway, Laois and Carlow.

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