UL won the 2024 Ashbourne Cup. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
By Paul Keane
Dinny Ferncombe is hoping for another weekend to remember out west in the Electric Ireland Ashbourne Cup.
The title holders won last year's final at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence and will return to the Mayo venue this weekend.
First up is Saturday's double header of semi-finals with 11-time winners UL set to face tournament hosts University of Galway at 1pm.
UCC will face TU Dublin in a repeat of the dramatic 2023 final immediately afterwards at 3pm with the winners of both games advancing to Sunday's final (3pm) at the same location.
Joint UL manager Ferncombe, who also coaches the team, acknowledged that back-to-back games will be challenging for whichever teams reach the final.
But he said the positives outweigh any negatives with the opportunity now for players to make lifelong memories.
"The camaraderie, the friendships and the memories that you can make on weekends like these are huge," said Ferncombe. "I've experienced it at Fitzgibbon Cup level, I've experienced it in management on both sides of it, in the Fitzgibbon Cup and the Ashbourne Cup. The memories you take away from it are second to none. Those are things that stay with you for life.
"Obviously player welfare and trying to deal with playing two full games in two games, if you're lucky enough to reach the final, is challenging but there are huge merits in a weekend like this also. We can't wait."
Ferncombe is delighted to grab any opportunity to highlight just how special the Electric Ireland Ashbourne Cup competition is.
His squad, captained by Galway's 2024 All-Ireland senior camogie finalist Jennifer Hughes, is jam packed with inter-county talent who deserve the recognition.
"We have 30 players who are part of our panel this weekend and in 2024 we reckon that 24 or 25 of them played inter-county between minor, junior, intermediate or senior," said Ferncombe. "The talent pool is there."
The problem for UL is that opponents University of Galway, who beat DCU 2-16 to 1-14 in last week's quarter-final, have their own star studded group.
"We haven't come across eachother in the league or championship yet," said Ferncombe. "But they've got a large number of inter-county players there from the likes of Galway, Kilkenny, Dublin and different counties."
UCC, captained by the in-form Isobel Sheehan, have shown strong form in the tournament so far too.
They have huge experience in their coaching team which includes Jerry Wallace, Donal O'Grady, Cathriona Foley and Mossie O'Sullivan.
UCC kicked off their Electric Ireland Ashbourne Cup campaign with big wins over MTU Cork and University of Galway and will face a TU Dublin side that beat UCD in the quarter-finals.
"As far as I'm concerned the four best teams in the competition are now going to be competing with eachother in the semi-finals," said Ferncombe.
The UL chief's hope is that with the majority of last year's successful team still available to him, they can hold onto the silverware.
"We had some really good final year students last year but we also had a phenomenal bunch of third year students," said Ferncombe.
"So they're in fourth year now and still with us. There's good experience there, mixed in with some newer quality players, so I'd be very confident again that we have depth in our panel and we'll need that over the weekend to try to help us get as far as we can.
"But genuinely there has been no talk about retaining it, it's just been about looking forward to 1pm on Saturday. And when we get to 3pm on Saturday we'll know where we stand, whether we have a final to look forward to or are we finished?"
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Electric Ireland Ashbourne Cup weekend fixtures
Semi-finals, Saturday
UL v University of Galway - University of Galway Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence, 1pm
UCC v TU Dublin - University of Galway Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence, 3pm
Final, Sunday
University of Galway Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence, 3pm