Footballing mum and daughter to duel at high noon

Damian McCarney

It will be high noon this Sunday in Drumgoon as a Cavan mother and teenage daughter look set to make GAA history and line out in opposing teams for a Ladies Junior Club Championship match.
Mum Aisling McDermott will field for Drumgoon at cornerback while her precociously talented daughter Naoíse McDermott will tog out for Shercock at - yep you guessed it - corner forward.
“Not at all,” says teenager Naoíse breezily when asked if she’s nervous about facing her mum, a former county senior player. Naoíse rates her mother as “very good”. While she’s is understandably sure she can outpace Aisling, she also insists she is “very confident” she can outwit her mother.
If Naoíse, who is making her Junior Championship debut, does get the upperhand in their personal duel, Aisling will have been the architect of her own demise.
“There was no underage team in Drumgoon, when Naoíse started playing, so she has been playing for Shercock - which I set up, and trained! She’s allowed to play senior team this year, but because there’s a senior team in her club, she can’t play with me. And they only got their senior team going last year. It’s all of my own making!”
Naoíse, who plays midfield for Cavan was part of the team who recently won the Ulster Championship, during which she scored an impressive 1-1.
“She is very talented,” says proud Aisling, “very skillful and a very clever player for her age. She likes to play with the older ones because she is a bit more advanced than a lot of her age group. And she’s very speedy,” she says with a wry laugh. “I’m dreading that bit.” Aisling says that a good result would be: “for me to win, but for Naoíse to play well.”
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