The Village Barn Senior LGF Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 1-10 Moate All-Whites 1-4

Mullingar Shamrocks senior LGF secured their first group stage win of the 2023 senior championship with a deserved victory over the Moate All White. Shamrocks controlled the match for the most part, a match in which both sides had trouble with their shooting as the wides tally mounted as the game progressed. Shamrocks held an interval lead of 0-4 to 0-2 thanks to points from Anna Jones (0-2), Chloe Swarbrigg from a pass supplied by Chloe Smullen and Karen Hegarty. Karen’s point ended a move that involved several Shamrocks players starting with Lauren McCormack deep in defence and ended with a superb Anna Jones pass to Chloe Smullen who in turn found Karen who finished the move of the night. Therese Geoghegan and Tara Hughes replied for Moate.

Máiread Newman charged forward from the restart and her dipping shot just skimmed the crossbar to extend the Shamrocks lead. Anna Jones pointed her second free and then sent a quick free ( a Johnny Sexton type box kick deep in to the corner) to Susanna Buckley that stretched the Moate defence, Alison Bane was on hand to collect from Susanna who set up Rachel Cheevers to score her first championship goal for Shamrocks. Rachel was later unlucky to have a second ‘goal’ ruled out for a ‘square’ ball infringement. Chloe Smullen pointed, Anna Jones pointed her third free kicked off the ground (one of the game’s highlights was Anna’s old school off-the-ground free taking), Karen Hegarty pointed twice from play and Chloe Swarbrigg returned Chloe Smullen’s first half favour by setting up Chloe for her second point of the evening. It wasn’t all one way traffic; Vanessa O’Brien’s solo goal midway through the half reduced the deficit to 3 points (1-6 to-1-3) but good defending especially in the closing minutes secured the victory and the important championship points.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Lauren McCormack; Annemarie O’Reilly, Siobhán O’Donnell, Melek Fagan; Chloe Swarbrigg (0-1), Máiread Newman, Jenna Kelly; Caoimhe Gaffney, Anna Jones (0-4); Alison Bane, Karen Hegarty (0-3), Micaela O’Connor; Chloe Smullen (0-2), Rachel Cheevers (1-0), Susanna Buckley.