CORK DUAL STAR Saoirse Noonan has landed the Barretstown / Women’s National League Player of the Month award for September.
Former Ireland underage international Noonan takes the gong after Cork City’s glittering winning run.
The Leesiders have won their last five league outings on the bounce, powering into third, having lost their two opening fixtures before this rich vein of form.
And Noonan — a senior inter-county Gaelic footballer with the Rebels too — has been central to this stunning success.
The gifted attacker bagged goals against Athlone Town and Wexford Youths to bring her tally to three for the season, but her overall contribution, between passing, link-ups, assists and general forward play on top of game management, leadership and footballing intelligence, has been nothing short of excellent
“Saoirse has loads of ability and talent, but sometimes we forget how young she is as she only turned 21 recently,” Cork manager Ronan Collins said. “During lockdown she put a lot of effort into herself and that is bearing fruits now.
“She is very good on taking on information on the pitch…we might be ahead in a game and need to close it out and she executes our instructions perfectly. Her role is quite varied but she has fulfilled every task we have given her.
We have definitely seen her leadership skills grow and that is shown not just in her six assists and quality in finding a pass but in her growth as a player. She is very hungry to be successful and wants to drive her team on to be a success.”
“Over the past number of weeks we have put the focus on performance with the hope that the results will come – and they have,” Collins added.
“The girls have been great with that and with taking on the responsibility of solving problems on the pitch. In other words, they are doing work that people might not always see and that is the same with Saoirse — she is benefitting from the work that she does off the pitch as much as on it.”
Wexford Youths teenage sensation Ellen Molloy — who’s been involved with Vera Pauw’s Ireland squad of late — took the prize for August.
Delighted with this award, been a great month for myself and the girls 💚 https://t.co/37g6HLhulI
— Saoirse Noonan (@saoirse_noonan) October 7, 2020
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Tell that to limerick, on the cusp of the double
@Ave it: There’s always an exception or two but the normality is complete non-events and a predictable outcome until the later stages of the championship.
@Rochelle: it wouldn’t be like that if we have tiers and open draw and dispensed with the provincial championship or ran provincial at a different time of year
@Ave it: Limerick beat a division 3 team hardly that much of an upset?
Imagine trying to get a ticket with six teams playing on the same day
@Eugene O’ Sullivan: exactly. Terrible idea. Double header of tier 2 and 3 on the Saturday evening and Tier 1 / minor final as tradition on its own the Sunday.
- Abolish Provincial Championships
- Champions League format with seeded draws
- 8 groups of 4
- Teams that finish first and Second play for Sam
- Third team and fourth team play in Bed and C Championships respectively
- All players still get the opportunity to pull off shocks and play for Sam.
- all players have something to play for
- Plus think of how the fixtures being so structured would also allow the club game to flourish.
Think I’ll run for the County council now too
@Séamus Tierney: Probably one of the best ideas, because one of the main complaints along with lack of coverage is that a ‘B’ championship would take away a players chance for a upset or a big day out in Croke Park against a top team. At least with this they get both that and chance of winning some silverware.
@Séamus Tierney: that’s a good idea and Zi used to be for it, but it wouldn’t work because you can pretty much pick which 16 teams will qualify with 1 or 2 surprises. 2/3 of the marches would be drubbings that will attract no public interest and the 1 decent game really a dead rubber as both teams guaranteed 2 wins from the other matches.
@Séamus Tierney: that’s a good idea and I used to be for it, but it wouldn’t work because you can pretty much pick which 16 teams will qualify with 1 or 2 surprises. 2/3 of the matches would be drubbings/hammerings that will attract no public interest and the 1 decent game really a dead rubber as both teams guaranteed 2 wins from the other matches.
@Séamus Tierney: still the same amount of hammerings in champions league format
All they need to do is reduce the size of the ball to little more than tennis ball size and let them bring sticks onto the pitch to hit the reduced size ball, problem solved.
@Dino: nice idea but I could see this becoming a niche product, played by an elite few counties and generally ignored by everyone else.
@Etherman: As opposed to the big ball game we have ATM played by one ‘elite’ county and where everyone yearns after the competitiveness of the niche product??
The league is a far better competition. Can we not just swap them around and play the championship in the spring?
@Brian Dunne: what???
@Brian Dunne: the league is very competitive, but it’s not the competition teams really want to win. The Kerry manager said all throughout the league that they weren’t interested in winning it. He got his wish in the end.
@Stephen Walsh: yea but if it was the championship they would
Works for the ladies also as TG4 cover all grades. RTE who pay Brolly are part of the problem zero coverage of lower profile games .
Intercounty League starts 1st Jan. Champions league format starting in April. Finished by end of June All Ireland final. Players back to the clubs by mid July. Then county finals played worse case end of Sept. Solved both Hurling and football in 261 characters.
There is no perfect format. A champions league type group system or an NFL type fixture competition would work best in my opinion. Teams can come against opposition of all levels and benefit from each. Eliminated teams can go into a second tier competition. Every team would play at least 4 games at a minimum. Season tickets & game planning could also be organised well in advance.