TIPPERARY LADIES FOOTBALL manager Shane Ronayne will be on taxi duty tonight, on the eve of his side’s crunch relegation final against Cavan in the TG4 All-Ireland senior championship.
In order to accommodate Tipp dual star Orla O’Dwyer, the relegation clash was scheduled for Sunday in Virginia, but Ronayne has taken it upon himself to ensure one of his key players gets to Cavan in one piece.
The rest of the Tipperary squad will make the trip north on Saturday afternoon, and Ronayne is just happy to have the Boherlahan player there to boost their chances of avoiding an immediate return to the intermediate grade.
“It’s not ideal going to Cavan. But it was the only option on the table, it was either play without Orla on Saturday or play with her in Cavan on Sunday,” said Ronayne.
“She is delighted to be able to play the game. The team travel up on Saturday, but I’m going to wait for Orla and bring her up after the game and she is looking forward to it.”
Defeat to Waterford in last weekend’s play-off means Tipp now have to go again to maintain their top-flight status, which was only earned 12 months ago with victory over Tyrone in the TG4 intermediate decider.
Relegation would be a huge blow to the Lidl NFL Division 2 champions, Ronayne agrees.
“We were very disappointed on Saturday evening; we just didn’t perform. Maybe we were over confident after playing well against Donegal.
“We did a lot of soul searching but we met on Tuesday and the girls were in great form and we trained really well. We know this is last chance saloon.
“It would be a severe blow to be an intermediate team playing Division 1 next year and I don’t know how that would go down. Anything could happen if things don’t go our way: players or management could step away.
“It’s a strange position to be in after the good start we made to the year. The prize for winning on Sunday is huge: it’d be like winning an All-Ireland final all over again.”
On the other side of the fence Cavan have also had a tough summer and have not won a game at all since their league semi-final victory over Waterford in April. After that win, they went on to face Tipp in the league final where one point separated the teams.
Cavan manager James Daly knows his side face a tough test in their fight to avoid the drop.
“It has been a tough summer. When you are drawn with Dublin and Mayo in the same group and then face another Division 1 team in the play-off it’s tough,” said Daly.
“The scoreboard doesn’t lie but we had four goal chances against Monaghan and if we had taken them it would have put them under pressure.
“We played Tipp in the league final and lost by a point on the day. People talk about revenge, but when your backs are against the wall you see the character of a team. If we want it bad enough we’ll go out and put in a performance worthy of staying in senior football.
“Relegation is always a blow, and if we go down we’ll be professional about it. We’ll regroup but in general it’s not something we want.”
On the injury front, Tipperary’s Laura Dillon is definitely out with a knee injury, while Cavan continue to plan without the services of Mona Sheridan, Joanne Moore and Bronagh Sheridan.
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What about her run in with Martin Johnson in the 2003 Six Nations? Caused quite a bit if controversy and an apology from the RFU.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/international/2904249.stm
You’re the one dubbing her “Ireland’s newest saint” Pete. The rest of us are simply acknowledging that she did the job with grace, humility and respect. Simple as that.
She certainly helped me over the hurdle of watching england play in croke park. She dragged me kicking and screaming thru quite a few things actually.
My sporting highlight for Mary McAleese was when she took the winning free that won the 2011 all Ireland football final for Dublin…wait a minute she wasn’t playing…actually now that I recall she didn’t play in any team during her presidency. What a load of nonsense this article is. More fool me for reading it. Hup-ya boyo!
All of of her speeches were empty platitudes.
When she opened the GR7 conference in the RDS in 2004 she opened her speech by saying that she knew nothing about Science.
The genius Stephen W. Hawking was sitting directly in front of her.
(Ireland collapsed on her so-called watch.)
Aw FFS, you can’t blame her for that, get real! Also I have a huge amount of respect for someone who acknowledges their ignorance on a subject. You could possibly learn something from her….
Not much soccer there!
Donnacha:
I was complaining about her elevation to be the newest Irish Saint.
She could have done SOME research before making such a speech in front of the cleverest people on earth.
And be criticised for trying to pretend she knows more than she does…. You can’t win in this country. Platitudes come with the role unfortunately, but so do the begrudgers.