Rachel McAllister is one of a dozen players from the 2023 Derry All-Ireland winning team searching for league silver this weekend. Michael McMullan went to meet her.

IT’S one of those evenings made for sport. Sun. The picturesque Owenbeg skyline. The clock has changed. There is a final on the horizon. Majestic.

Rachel McAllister’s smile tells more about the Derry progress. When the Derry captain says she is excited, she means it. Her eyes say it louder. A season that began with low numbers has turned a corner.

She is one of 12 players from their All-Ireland winning team from two years ago. It’s a valuable core. Losing the rest left them scratching their heads under new manager Eamonn Melaugh.

A win over Carlow was a useful start. There was a 2-10 to 0-8 defeat to Sunday’s opponents Offaly. A crossroads of sorts. A win over Armagh followed.

It was time to get on the road. Wins over Meath and Kerry paved the way to Thurles and a crack at league glory on Sunday.

“At the start of the year, with the whole turnover we probably would have thought we weren’t going make it,” McAllister told Gaelic Life.

“As we went through the league, we started getting better and better so we’re very excited for the final coming our way.”

They have a nucleus. Twins Aimee and Leah Lennon. Aine and Sinead McGill. Goalkeeper Niamh Gribbin. The experience of Aoife Ní Chaiside. Niamh Quinn and Laura Coyle. Orlaith Hull and Eimear Doherty. McAllister’s clubmate Lauren McKenna.

“Even the younger ones that have been there, like Eimear Doherty and Orlaith Hull, they’ve really stepped up this year,” McAllister said.

“They’re some of our main players as such, so it just took a lot of girls stepping up and the new girls slotting in.”

Jackie Donnelly, Rebecca Bradley, Roisin Cassidy, Anna McDaid and Cliodhna Ní Mhianáin have returned. Éabha McElhinney is flying.

Their win over Meath set them up for a winner-takes-all game in Kerry and Derry decided to go against the wind in the first half.

They trusted their camogie and dug deep to produce their best performance of the season.

“Most people, with us going in with seven points down after the first half, were probably thinking we’re done for,” McAllister said.

“In the changing room, that wasn’t the vibe at all. Everyone was ready to go and we knew we had to go out and play in the second half.”

Going into Sunday’s final, the Oakleafers will be looking to reverse the Offaly defeat. They’ll hope the rise in form continues.

“It was our second game and we really started to play,” McAllister adds. “With there being such a turnover, I think that second game was probably girls getting used to positions.”

Looking back when she made the breakthrough herself, McAllister points to pace and strength as the step up from underage and from coming in from the club game. Coming up against the best from across Ireland, that’s the challenge

The new players have adapted with those with the experience of the county scene able to steer them.

With every game, there is a feeling the team is beginning to unite.

Below the senior squad, there has been a host of successes at school, club and underage level.

“We probably haven’t got all of them at the minute,” McAllister said, “but even this year, with the young girls coming into the squad, they probably haven’t been part of it in previous years.

“It’s just showing the talent we have that we didn’t know we had. Girls have stepped up when the others have gone away, which is great to see and hopefully the future’s bright.”

The immediate future is trying to follow in Antrim’s footsteps by taking home a league title. For Derry, they’ll hope to tap into their second half performance against Kerry.

“We’ve got our feet in it now and we’re ready to play together as such,” she concludes.

“I feel like the second game (defeat to Offaly) probably wasn’t really a true display of us as a whole and hopefully we step up to the mark and play the way I believe we can.”