No extra pressure on us, says Crosserlough's Reilly

'Teams are just glad to be getting some football'

Crosserlough dual star Niamh Reilly believes there is no extra pressure on her side this year, despite carrying the favourites’ tag into the Ladies Senior Football Championship.

Crosserlough completed a meteoric rise through the ranks when clinching their first Senior Championship last year with a 1-18 to 3-5 final victory over Mullahoran and remain the team to beat this time around.

However, the fragmented nature of the build-up this year means that players are just happy to have some competitive action to look forward to, according to young attacker Reilly.

“I don’t think it puts a lot of pressure on us to be honest because we actually haven’t had that much time to think about it,” Niamh told The Anglo-Celt at last week’s championship launch in Crover House.

“I think a lot of us actually thought the championship wasn’t going to happen so now that we only have a few weeks to prepare, I think all teams in the championship are kind of the same, we all only have the few weeks to prepare. So I don’t think there is really any added pressure on us, no.

“I think everyone is just looking forward to getting playing a bit of football.

“I think we are just lucky in Crosserlough that our underage have always been so well looked after and I think that’s really starting to show now in the last few years. We have such a young team and we are starting to reap the rewards of the underage being so well looked after.

“Obviously we are hoping to retain our title this year but the fact that we haven’t had much time to prepare, I suppose it’s all up in the air now. Hopefully we can do it but the championship is always so great in ladies football because every team is on a par, there’s never anybody really ahead of anyone else.

“It will be good to see what way it goes this year, hopefully it goes in our favour.”

Crosserlough are unique in the province at present - and possibly nationally - in that they currently hold both the senior ladies football and senior camogie titles, a staggering achievement made possible, Reilly believes, by a far-sighted approach from the respective team managements.

“I think we are just lucky that the two managements have always got on very well and that has taken a lot of pressure off the dual players. I think we have up on nearly 25 dual players this year.

“So the fact that the two management teams always get on really well and sort everything out for us, it takes the pressure off the girls, they don’t have to pick which they should be doing. The management have it picked for us which is great for us and I think that’s why it has been so successful the last few years for us.”

Crosserlough are drawn in a group with Templeport, Lacken and Gowna in the Ladies SFC while in camogie, they take on Laragh in the first round.

See this week’s print edition for a full interview with Niamh Reilly and more from the Cavan LGFA launch.