‘We’re going to give it absolutely everything’ vows Galligan

Damian McCarney

Crosserlough will enter Sunday’s All Ireland Junior Camogie semi-final with their eyes wide open to the scale of the challenge facing them.

Having negotiated a perilous Ulster Championship with gutsy displays they now face Roscommon and Connacht club champions Four Roads. The match offers a chance of redemption after last year’s disappointment at the same stage, when they were destroyed by the Kilmessan. The Leinster champions led 3-10 to 0-1 by half-time.
Captain Erinn Galligan refers to that game as an “eye-opener” of the ratcheting up of the “intensity, skill level and pace of the game” when they venture beyond Ulster’s boundaries.
“When you win an Ulster title you automatically think you are on the same lines as the other provincial winners, but unfortunately there is a clear difference in standard when you come down from Ulster,” says Erinn, who is one of six Crosserlough players to be nominated for an Ulster Camogie All Star.
Erinn rejects charges of complacency in 2017, but insists that this year they have a better understanding of the “mammoth battle” ahead.
“We had that game lost in the first 15 minutes because we weren’t ready for the onslaught that came, and the difference in standard, but this year we are more aware of the difference, and of how good they will be coming at us from the first minute or two, and will be aware that that’s the intensity, skill level and pace of the game that they are going to bring.”
Having progressed to this All Ireland semi-final by beating Bredagh, Bellaghy, and Loughgiel by two, two and one point respectively, Erinn’s hopeful that if they can remain in the contest to the game’s crucial quarter, Crosserlough’s proven “grit and determination” will tell.
“I can’t say we’re confident, but we’re going to give it absolutely everything. Belief and heart is there in this team, no matter what it is. Sometimes we come out of games and we mightn’t have necessarily been the best team over the 60 minutes – but that said, the best team over 60 minutes doesn’t always win the game. What this team has is the belief and the heart to get over the line. When the going gets tough this team gets tougher, and they put in that grit and the hard yards in the last 10, 15 minutes when it’s really needed and that’s what gets us over the line.”
Crosserlough’s squad has a healthy mix of age profiles, and Erinn agrees that the extra year’s experience will stand to the younger players, as will winning back-to-back Ulster titles.
“Those girls are well able – they’re used to winning. All through the years they have come up and won more than us who went before them. So us older ones tell them that it doesn’t come around too often and these are the glory days.
“So I think they have the experience of winning, but they have the knowledge that they are living in good times for Crosserlough Camogie, and it won’t last forever, so to cherish it as well.”