London Calling for Derry Ladies this weekend

TG4 Ladies Junior Football Championship Group B Round 1

London v Derry

DERRY begin their All-Ireland Championship campaign when they make the trip to London on Saturday to face the Tir Conaill girls in McGovern Park, Ruislip at 12noon. 

Coming off the back of a disappointing league and then Ulster championship the Oak Leaf girls will be hoping they have ironed out the problems as they now embark on the All-Ireland series. Recording just one win in Division Four of the league against Kilkenny, they then suffered defeats to Down and Fermanagh in the Ulster championship. 

Looking back on the Ulster campaign, team captain Joanne Corr believes they can take positives from it and can learn from the games.

“The defeat to Down was a real wake up call for us, but in any match we never really let the heads go down too far, we battle on. We knew we needed to bring a stronger game for Fermanagh and we took away a lot of positives from our performance in that game. The defeats were a learning opportunity for what we needed to work on and how to strengthen the positive pieces of play, especially from the Fermanagh game," said Corr.

They have put those behind them and now all attention is on London.

“So looking ahead to the All-Ireland series we know what’s expected of us and hopefully we can show that on the pitch. For us I think we showed what we were capable of and it’s been about pushing on and developing from that for this All-Ireland series," added the Ballymaguigan club player.

Playing London away adds much more planning than any other game but Corr was quick to point out and credit her management in their planning.

“To be honest, complete credit to our management and county committee, all the planning and organisation has been done for us. The girls don’t have a worry in regards to any of that, which has allowed us to put complete focus on our trainings and game play in preparation for London.”

London too had a poor league as they lost all of their outings in the other group in Division Four. It will be a little bit of the unknown with few opportunities to get a chance to have a look at London. Their side also changes from one year to the next with a number of new names involved this year from all corners of Ireland. Cork’s Cliona Twohig will captain the side. 

“I know they had a rough time in the league with defeats, like ourselves, but we can’t take that for granted at this stage in the year. We’re expecting a tough game in tough conditions with the heat but we’re looking forward to it.” 

It's a tricky opening game but having saw the future stars claiming the U14 title at the weekend they can take heart from them.

“It’s a phenomenal achievement for our U14s to win their Gold All-Ireland final. It gives us girls a great boost pushing forward and shows how underage development in the county set up is making huge strides. A very big congratulations to all our u14s, we’re very proud of you," addes Corr. 

Also in the group are Fermanagh and Carlow who play this coming Sunday afternoon in Dunleer. 

Derry Ladies Senior Club Leagues 

THE senior football league has reached the halfway stage and it is Steelstown that lead the way with a 100% record winning all nine of their outings. 

The reigning county champions already look the side to beat again this year and have laid the marker down for the rest of the clubs to see who can catch them. On their tails are Ballymaguigan whose only defeat was at the hands of Steelstown while Ballinascreen have also had a fine campaign to date. At the other end Moneymore are still searching for their first win with just the one point to show from their eight outings to date. Faughanvale’s win over Moneymore the last day out moves them off the bottom to go above Moneymore. 

Meanwhile in the junior league the 2022 junior champions Lavey lead the way on 10 points from their seven games to date. However, Claudy have only played four games and won all four while Lissan are still looking their first points of the league.