Champions Steelstown hoping to make it four-in-a-row

Errigal Senior Championship Final

Glen vs. Steelstown

Today

Foreglen GAC

Throw in 4:15pm

This year’s Senior Championship Final could not have been set up more intriguingly, with champions Steelstown hoping to reassert their dominance in Derry by beating the only team to defeat them in four years.

Last month, Glen sent shockwaves through the Ladies game in the county when they defeated Steelstown 2-6, 1-8 at Watty Graham Park.  That was Steelstown’s first defeat in Derry championship football since losing the 2019 semi-final to Ballymaguigan, a run of over four years without a loss. It even briefly put Steelstown on the verge of early elimination from the tournament. But showing the mark of champions, they bounced back emphatically, defeating Ballymaguigan and Ballerin to progress to the latter stages of the tournament once again.

Still, that defeat will be fresh in everyone’s minds, on both teams, as they meet gain today at Foreglen, one team determined to keep hold of their title, the other desperate to put a new name on the trophy.

“It was a big setback and don’t get me wrong, Glen deserved their win on the day,” Steelstown coach Thomas Cusack said. “They came with a plan and they played well and our girls just didn’t turn up. It was one of those ones where you would day ‘Thank God for the round robin’. It’s Glen we play in the final again. They deserved the victory that day we played, they played well and we were poor.”

Cusack has seen it all in his time at Steelstown, but even he admits he has been blown away by the emphatic response of his players to that painful loss.

“Since that defeat, we knew we couldn’t lose again and the girls, their attitude has been super in training,” he explained. “They have got back to basics and the atmosphere has been very good, they’re focused and they are helping one another out, they are pulling each other on, so the defeat was a good thing for us. It was hard to take, but it was still a good thing for us.”

Steelstown have become used to success in recent years, with silverware almost expected on an annual basis such is the will to win in the squad.

Their first of three successive Derry titles came at Celtic Park in 2002, when Orla McGeough scored the goal in a 1-11, 0-3 win over Ballymaguigan.

A year later, it was a goal from Aoife Collins which led to a 1-8, 0-4 win over Ballinascreen, again at Celtic Park.

The champions then had to leave the city to chase their third successive title 12 months ago, but they were dominant against Ballymaguigan again, with Orla McGeough, Dara McKeever and Aoife Collins getting the goals in a 3-11, 1-5 win.

Unprecedented

Winning four Derry titles in a row would be unprecedented, but Steelstown are now just one game away from doing just that.

“It would be something special for us and it would be a great achievement for any club,” Thomas acknowledged. “The fact is we’re still a relatively young club, but the girls set out the stall every year to win the Derry Championship and to get to another final is just great.

“The girls knuckle down every year. When you’re starting out every year, to be honest I’d rather take another month off, but the girls are itching to get back. They want to get back at it and go to the gym and whatever they can and I have to tell them to relax. It’s them who push it on. They are a brilliant bunch.”

Producing a winning team year on year is not an easy task, with teams across the county getting better and a new challenger to the crown seemingly emerging year on year. Cusack deserves a lot of credit for how far the team has come under his watch, but he deflects all praise onto his players, particularly the more experienced ones.

“It’s the older girls who pull the younger girls on and it’s the older girls who set the standard in the training sessions,” he revealed. “The younger girls will come in and they may not know what’s expected of them, so it may take them a wee bit of time to adapt. But then they are seeing the standards being set by the older girls, so they just up their standards to meet them. We have some good youth players coming through and we still have the older, experienced heads so we’re going the right way.”

Last year’s Senior Championship success preceded an awful and controversial experience for the club with Steelstown booted out of the Ulster Championship at the semi-final stage for refusing to travel to Cavan for their game against Castlerahan.

The team decided to turn their bus around when news came through that of a pitch change to a 3G venue. With no player having the required footwear for a 3G surface, it was deemed impossible for the Derry side to complete the fixture.

The situation worsened when opponents Castlerahan and the match official took pictures at the Templeport pitch at throw-in time, despite knowing Steelstown were not making the journey. The Ulster LGFA awarded Castlerahan the win however, meaning their hopes of making up for their 2021 Ulster final defeat ended of the field.

While that pain may have been driving some in the Steelstown squad to get back into Ulster when they returned to pre-season training earlier this year, Thomas insists that all focus now is on today, and Glen, and nothing else.

“All we set our stall out every year for is to win Derry,” he insisted. “After that, we go and see what’s next and have a bit of fun. Last year we were hurt, but that’s behind us now. All we ever do is to set out and win Derry, and anything after that is a bonus.

“All the girls know that it’s full focus on Glen. Don’t be thinking we’re anything else. Just think about Saturday and doing the job and doing what’s asked with you. The girls will be focused, they know they are in for a hard game, and it will probably be one of the closest finals in a couple of years. They are focused and they know what’s ahead of them. They know it’s going to be a tough challenge.”