Killygarry captain Cahill looking to make history

Ladies SFC final preview

Kevin Óg Carney

Ally Cahill has won All-Irelands with Loreto College and played big-time soccer with Bohemians but the prospect of lining out in this year’s Cavan senior ladies football final has her pulse racing like never before.

The 20 year old Killygarry midfielder is eyeing up this weekend’s blue riband event like a prospector eyeing up a shiny object in a bristling stream.

Cahill packs a punch. She’s a Cavan senior But, for her, it’ll be a collective – not an individual – effort that will count against the Lurgan lassies:

“If we are going to get over the line, it’ll be because we all worked hard as a unit. If we win, it’ll be down to a really good team performance because we wanted it more.”

According to the midfield maestro, the buzz and excitement ricocheting off the drumlins around Killygarry is almost tangible. Red and black jut out from every corner of the local gaeldom.

But will that landscape morph into a dreamscape come Saturday evening?

“It’s hard to know,” Cahill opines. “I think it’ll be a high scoring game but very tight at the end. This is our first senior final as a group and it would be just brilliant to get over the line. It’s a great opportunity for the club and a great experience not only for us as players but all our juveniles as well.”

Killgarry’s Captain Fantastic missed out on Killygarry’s IFC triumph in 2015 (due to being only 13 at the time) and she is anxious to get the chance to celebrate the winning of the biggest prize of all.

“We have been very lucky growing up with the same management team from under 12 upwards. We won an all-Ireland Feile title and it’s just been a great run of success for this group up through the grades.

“We have been consistently improving. We met Crosserlough in underage finals over the years but couldn’t seem to beat them till this year which was a great monkey off our backs.”

It’s obvious that the Killygarry lynchpin has great respect for what Lurgan have achieved over the years and she credits them with “having raised the bar for Cavan ladies football with the likes of Ciara Lynch and Laura Keogan really outstanding ambassadors for Cavan football,”opines the daughter of Tom and Lorraine Cahill.

So how will Saturday’s duel pan out?

“We will go into the game as underdogs but that’s the best scenario for us. We learned from recent campaigns and what we have to do must win the game on Saturday. The game against Gowna gave us things to work on as did the semi-final game against Crosserlough (where Geraldine Smith’s dramatic late goal gave the red and blacks a 3-11 to 2-11 victory).”

“I think our win over Crosserlough was probably our best performance of the year. We ran the ball fast and all worked hard all the way through the game.

“I just think we need to add a bit more to what we showed against Crosserlough,” adds the Occupational Therapy student who attens Ulster University in Derry.

And what is likely to make all the difference this Saturday?

“Which ever team takes their scores. We went for goals the last time we played Lurgan and their ‘keeper (Evelyn Baugh) did brilliantly to save four shots. We have fast runners, who are great at taking the ball off the shoulders and hopefully that’ll will key for us but I think it will boil down to which team wants it more.”