Galway v Monaghan

Sunday, Sean McDermott Park, 1pm

By Niall Gartland

MONAGHAN ladies boss Ciaran Murphy says he’s keen for his team to show the watching world what they can do in Sunday’s crunch tie against last year’s beaten All-Ireland finalists Galway.

This is their second and final group stage clash, but as the man himself puts it, it’s effectively an All-Ireland quarter-final with the winners progressing to the last four of the championship.

The Farney girls are in buoyant form after their thrilling one-point victory over Tipperary on Friday night, and Murphy insists they won’t get too bogged down worrying about their opponents.

Their player to watch out for is Tracey Leonard, who hit six frees against Tipperary as well as a hat-trick of goals in their league win over Donegal earlier in the year, but Monaghan have some super sharpshooters themselves like Ciara McEnespie and Ellen McCarron.

Murphy commented: “Galway are one of the top teams in the country and reached the All-Ireland final last year.

“They’ve got some brilliant footballers and while we’ll try to negate them, we want to show what we can do as well.

“If we express ourselves like we can I think we’ll be in with a good shout and we’re confident.”

Noting that Galway also slipped by Tipperary by a point, he said: “It’s hard to go by things like that as every match is different and that was their first day out as well. Tipperary are no bad team either.”

Monaghan raced into a 0-9 to 0-1 lead against Tipp but their opponents clawed their way back into proceedings and the scoreboard was level by half time. Murphy’s side held on in the second half despite being down to 14 players and it’s given them a real chance of reaching the All-Ireland semi-final.

“It was brilliant, we’d been waiting so long for that game and it was hard to know exactly where we were at,” Murphy continued.

“I suppose the first 15 minutes showed that the girls were up for it, but they got two goals and we regrouped at half time. I thought our composure at the end was brilliant.

“We’d been sort of starting all over again this year with some girls coming back into the scene and a lot of new players as well, so it’s great for the team’s confidence.”

Murphy was part of the backroom last year before becoming manager this season. It’s not been a straightforward campaign but he says they did their best to maintain morale during the lockdown earlier in the year.

“We almost forgot about fixtures and football. We did a charity event that raised 13 grand, and we also did different yoga sessions. We posted the stuff we did and that kept everyone together.

“When we were ready to start up again it didn’t feel like we were apart for as long as we actually were.”