REIGNING All-Ireland LGFA U18A champions Cork put their title on the line against Dublin in a semi-final next Thursday evening, July 9th.<\/p>\n
The Rebels overcame Clare to claim this year\u2019s Munster minor crown back in May. Since then, Kieran O\u2019Shea\u2019s side have endured a long wait ahead of next week\u2019s semi-final at Templetuohy GAA club grounds in Moyne, Tipperary.<\/p>\n
So, how have recent preparations gone for the defending All-Ireland champions?<\/p>\n
\u2018We organised a lot of challenge games and recently have been training with more or less a full panel,\u2019 O\u2019Shea told The Southern Star.<\/p>\n
\u2018We left it up to our Leaving Certs, as regards training, because that took priority. They had our running programme to do whenever suited them best. As with last year, it is a tough time. Girls are away on holidays and focussing on the Leaving Cert but it\u2019s the same for all the minor squads.<\/p>\n
\u2018After being through All-Ireland semi-finals and a final last year, we have that bit more experience when it comes to organising everything this time around.<\/p>\n
\u2018It has been hard to get challenge games. We played a few Cork clubs like Glanmire and St Val\u2019s and got some good games in. Those games were better than any training sessions as the girls faced different challenges in them.\u2019<\/p>\n
Last summer’s All-Ireland minor final win over Dublin saw Cork rack up 3-11 en-route to their nine-point victory. Little doubt that the Leinster champions will be eager for revenge.<\/p>\n
\u2018Dublin are going to be very strong,\u2019 O\u2019Shea admitted.<\/p>\n
\u2018They beat Meath well in the Leinster final. They\u2019ve got a lot of pace which all Dublin teams do. We know exactly what we\u2019re facing into.<\/p>\n
\u2018All we are doing in the build-up is focussing on ourselves and hoping the girls can put in a performance. We know what our players are capable of and if they can do that then we will be very hard to beat.<\/p>\n
\u2018The girls have been training really hard over the last couple of weeks, especially those back after the Leaving Cert. We are trying to get the balance right between the girls being fresh,\u00a0 match-sharp and fitness-ready.;<\/p>\n
West Cork\u2019s representatives on this year\u2019s inter-county minor panel include R\u00f3is\u00edn Duggan (Clonakilty), Ellen Connolly (Castlehaven), \u00c1ine Kearney, Anna Kelleher, Hannah Deasy, Caoimhe O\u2019Donnell (all Kinsale), Evelyn McCarthy (Bandon), Caoimhe Foley (Courcey Rovers) and Katie Murphy (Rosscarbery).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REIGNING All-Ireland LGFA U18A champions Cork put their title on the line against Dublin in a semi-final next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-535817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535817","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=535817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}