Galtee Gaels celebrate nail-biting Limerick Ladies intermediate final win success

“We'd the work done, we knew we'd have the fitness to see it through,” was manager John Cleary's reaction after Galtee Gaels' Ladies footballers captured the county intermediate title as an injury time winner secured a nail-biting 3-6 to 2-8 final victory over Murroe-Boher in Sunday's final in the TUS Gaelic Grounds.

However, such a dramatic conclusion had looked highly unlikely when Galtee Gaels belted home their third goal five minutes after the break and were still leading still leading by seven points going into the final quarter.

Two early goals left Galtee Gaels dictating the play until the closing minutes and, even when they fell behind after conceding a soft goal to their resilient opponents coming into the run-in, the winners equalised straight from the resulting kick-out and kept their cool in the frantic end game to grab the winning score.

Two goals from Breda Martin left Galtee Gaels leading 2-3 to 0-5 at half-time.

The Gaels kicked on on the restart as as Leah Geary sent over a free and Martin ran onto Ali Quane's pass off a solo up the centre to drill home the third leg of her hat-trick.

Leading by eight, they then settled for containment and, with the Murroe contained to a single Sinéad McElligot strike by the three-quarter mark, looked to have taken the sting out of the response.

But despite the missed chances, Murroe-Boher's persistence finally injected momentum into their response when Lisa Leonard's point was followed by Nicole Bennett collecting Leonard's lay-off before drilling the ball inside the butt of the far upright.

And when Leonard's follow-up point, the miraculous recovery appeared to have been completed when Karen Cunningham's effort flew into the back of the net just under the crossbar.

Trailing for the first time since the second minute, the Galtee Gaels girls responded immediately with Chloe Lyons's equalising point.

Galtee were lasting the course better and Caylee Hogan collected off Ali Quaid's solo to point four minutes into added time and they held on for another excruciating five to collect the title.

SCORERS: GALTEE GAELS: Breda Martin 3-0, Chloe Lyons, Leah Geary (1 free) 0-2 each, Chloe Cleary and Caylee Hogan 0-1 each: MURROE-BOHER: Nicole Bennett, Karen Cunningham 1-0 each, Aoife Ryan, Megan Buckley (1 free), Lisa Leonard 0-2 each, Sinéad McElligot, Aisling Regan 0-2 each.