By Niall Gartland

ALL-IRELAND titles aren’t handed out for showing up and the Naomh Treasa team stood at a crossroads at half-time of Saturday’s Junior B Championship final against Glasgow-based Ceann Creige.

While they certainly had their moments in the first half, they hadn’t come anywhere close to playing to their potential, as indicated by the fact they only mustered a single point in the opening 30 minutes. So too, had their opposition.

It’s fair to say that the game hadn’t caught fire, but that wasn’t Naomh Treasa’s concern – the worry was that if they didn’t up the ante considerably, they would let a golden opportunity slip through their fingers.

A few ‘home truths’, as joint-captain Marian Barker puts it, had the desired effect. The team management told them in no uncertain terms that their performance wasn’t up to the required standard, and their words had the desired effect.

They were a much more determined and dangerous proposition in the second half and ran out thoroughly deserved 2-3 to 0-4 victors, ensuring that the All-Ireland title would make its way back to Dungannon for the second time in four years.

Barker said: “We got a bit of a firm talking to at half-time. Dean (McParland) said a few choice words and then Mick (McErlean) came in with a few home truths, he was the manager the last time we won the All-Ireland and is still in the backroom team.

“We hadn’t played to our full potential, maybe it was a matter of nerves, but we regrouped. We didn’t know an awful lot about the opposition as well, but we definitely came out strong in the second half and were more like ourselves.”

Naomh Treasa’s Glasgow-based opposition had, rather ominously, totted up scorelines of 8-15, 7-14 and 3-11 en route to Saturday’s final but there would be no continuation of the theme, Naomh Treasa producing a fantastic defensive display to curtail Ceann Creige to only four points across that hour.

“I’ve said this before but our goalkeeper Eimear Colton is the backbone of our team. Her puck-outs are brilliant and she commands the whole defence – she’s always talking, always encouraging and has kept a clean sheet for the last three or four matches.

“I thought our defensive lines were very solid as well. I thought Caitlin McNulty had a great game at corner-back, she pulled off a number of great blocks and dispossessions.”

Naomh Treasa have made massive progress and Barker believes they’re getting better all the time.

They won the delayed 2020 All-Ireland Junior B Championship, eventually played off in the Winter of 2021, and they came agonisingly close to upsetting the applecart against Eglish in last year’s Tyrone Senior Championsip final. Now they’ve won another All-Ireland and the natural next step is to move up to ‘A’ grade, where they’ll justifiably feel they can hold their own.

“We took Eglish to a draw last year which was a huge result for us but we didn’t really show up in the replay. Still, it showed that we had it in us and it gave us a bit of drive.

“Even though we were disappointed we saw the potential in the team, and if you look back at our last All-Ireland win, there’s a mad difference.

“We work much better as a team, and our younger girls, the likes of Beth Jones, Cora McGrath and Caitriona Ferran, are all now solid members of the senior team.”

“We definitely want to see what we can do at Junior ‘A’ – Knockananna won this year’s final and we beat them in 2021, so we’re confident we’ll be up to it.”