Mayo club suffer heavy defeat in camogie final

An impressive display by Ardrahan resulted in a comprehensive 5-13 to 1-3 victory over Castlebar Mitchels in the Galway Camogie Junior (B) 12 a-side Championship Final, played at Killimordaly.

Castlebar Mitchels were hoping for a positive start to this encounter, however, following a well-taken pointed free from Aoife Morris, her Ardrahan team-mate Brenda Kerins guided home a superlative finish into the top corner of the Castlebar net.

Kerins was posing the Mayo side plenty of problems and the corner-forward added her second goal of the joust after five minutes.

Castlebar struggled to bypass the dominant Ardrahan midfield and half back line, and the south Galway side acquired their third green flagged effort of the afternoon on eight minutes courtesy of Kerins, who in the process recorded her incredible first half hat-trick of goals.

To their credit, Castlebar kept plugging away and their game plan received a boost on 14 minutes when Brona Joyce rustled the back of the net. Indeed, Joyce almost pinched a second goal shortly after, but her rasping drive was heroically blocked by Ardrahan’s Aoife Morris.

The blue and white dominated the remainder of the half, with Elaine Dolphin’s exquisitely taken point on 23 minutes one of the scores of the game, and at half-time the Galway outfit led 3-9 to 1-0.

A positive start to the new half was imperative for Castlebar and the red and yellow notched heir first point of the tie on 31 minutes through a free from Niamh Kennedy. However, Ardrahan garnered a 4-10 to 1-1 lead when Dolphin found the back of the net on 37 minutes.

Castlebar continued to search for scores, with Kennedy adding two further pointed frees, but a dominant Ardrahan finished the game strongly, with Saoirse Burke’s late goal the icing on the cake for the south Galway side.