Clare bounced back from last week’s defeat to Kilkenny with a solid defensive display at Grant Heating St Brendan\u2019s Park, Limerick landed a last-gasp equaliser to condemn Dublin to a relegation play-off and Kilkenny showed their strength in depth by making 11 changes and still overcoming Wexford in this afternoon\u2019s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship action.<\/p>\n
When the dust settled on the fare that took place in Birr, Cappamore and Wexford, it was Kilkenny and Clare who were locked into Monday morning\u2019s All-Ireland quarter-final draw, Offaly and Limerick made sure of their senior status for 2027, and the relegation final will be a repeat of this year\u2019s Leinster final between Dublin and Wexford.<\/p>\n
Clare won the second half in Birr by 0-09 to 0-02, but it was actually in the opening 30 minutes when they were most impressive against Offaly, as they hurled into a ferociously strong breeze and trailed by a mere two points, 1-06 to 0-07.<\/p>\n
Offaly did shoot five first-half wides, including a couple of very scorable frees from Clodagh Leahy, but it was the platform offered by the Clare half-back line that set the Banner on their way to victory.<\/p>\n
Claire Hehir shot a point from play, hoovered up a world of loose ball and was tenacious in the tackle in a dominant showing, while her fellow joint-captain, Abby Walsh was a rock at centre-back, as was Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Keeffe on the edge of the square.<\/p>\n
R\u00f3is\u00edn Begley shot 0-10 in all on the day including nine frees, while Ziyan Spillane was lively in the full-forward line as well. However the quality of ball going in was top drawer, with Clare working the ball through the lines superbly.<\/p>\n
Grace Teehan hit the net for Offaly after 20 minutes, capitalising on a fine blockdown from Leahy to set up the opportunity, but a wonderful save from Emer Reynolds to deny Andrea O\u2019Keeffe was a sign that the Offaly defence could be attacked.<\/p>\n
Defensively Offaly held up well in the second half but they just couldn\u2019t make any inroads into the breeze, and started chasing goals going into the fourth quarter. Katie O\u2019Connell had the ball in the net but her effort was ruled out by Liz Dempsey for overcarrying and while the contest was close with Mair\u00e9ad Teehan carrying the fight, Clare hit the last four points, including a fine insurance score from \u00c1ine O\u2019Loughlin, to win by 0-16 to 1-08.<\/p>\n
In Cappamore, first-half goals from Sarah O\u2019Brien and Lizanna Boylan gave Limerick a strong start as they led by four at half-time and they seemed set fair for a win when Eimear O\u2019Donovan added goal number three.<\/p>\n
Sin\u00e9ad Wylde\u2019s equalising goal approaching the hour mark set up a grandstand finale however and Dublin looked like they might avoid a relegation final when Emma Moran nudged them 1-18 to 3-11 in front, only for a last puck free from Limerick to level the game.<\/p>\n
In Wexford Park there was nothing at stake other than bragging rights in a south-east derby, not to mention form going into crucial quarter-final and relegation fixtures for Kilkenny and Wexford.<\/p>\n
An early Leah Furlong goal got the hosts out to a dream start and they led by 1-02 to 0-03 after 20 minutes, but despite going deep into their panel to share around the championship minutes, Kilkenny were dogged and competitive as well as stout in defence with Laura Murphy striking dead balls well.<\/p>\n
A brace from Katie Nolan gave them some breathing room and it was her green flag in the 54th minute that was the pivotal score in a 1-12 to 1-07 win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clare bounced back from last week’s defeat to Kilkenny with a solid defensive display at Grant Heating St…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-521672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}