In attendance during the captains day ahead of the 2024 TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Championship Finals at Croke Park in Dublin is Galway captain Ailbhe Davoren. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
This time last year, Galway LGFA star, Ailbhe Davoren, travelled to France to take part in the Interceltic Festival of L’Orient where she performed as a Sean Nós dancer with her cousin’s band.
There’ll be no such trip this year, but fleet footwork will still be required on Sunday when she captains the Tribeswomen in Sunday’s LGFA All-Ireland Senior Final against Kerry.
Davoren is something of an all-rounder – she’s also played international basketball – but there’s no place she’d rather be than Croke Park on All-Ireland Sunday.
Few would have predicted she’d be in this position when Galway were relegated from Division 1 of the Lidl National Football League after defeat to Waterford last April.
How does a team that won just one League game from seven turn their season right around by reaching the All-Ireland Final?
“To be honest, I’m not sure what the difference is,” says Davoren.
“We stayed training the same, we just tried to improve on a few things. There is nothing between so many teams, one point here or there, and thankfully we have been on the right side of that recently.”
Maybe it’s all down to the magic of momentum. Galway didn’t look like All-Ireland contenders when they lost their first match of the championship against Cork, but when they then hammered Laois by 7-22 to 1-5 a week later their season took off.
Galway players, from left, Emma Reaney, Shauna Hynes, Niamh Divilly and Ailish Morrissey celebrate after their side's victory in the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Senior Championship quarter-final match between Dublin and Galway at Parnell Park in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
Their next game was the All-Ireland Quarter-Final against reigning champions Dublin when they confounded all the predictions by winning a thriller after extra-time, a victory that led to a huge outpouring of emotion on the pitch afterwards.
“Sure it's hugely exciting and it means so much to the girls,” says Davoren. “I don't know, maybe from the outside it looks like we over celebrate our wins but we just were so happy to be, you know, kind of achieving really. It meant a lot and they were an excellent football side.
“Dublin are brilliant, they've driven the standard for years. We knew it was going to be extremely tight, went to extra-time. We were dropping like flies, I dropped myself with cramp.
“It just shows the ferocious effort that people put in to win that game and we backed it up with our subs coming on and doing brilliantly and Aoife scoring a fantastic goal just to get us over the line.”
Galway proved that result was no fluke by gaining vengeance on Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final, but they’ll go into Sunday’s Final as underdogs against a Kerry team that has beaten them on each of the last four occasions they’ve met.
“Kerry are an excellent footballing side,” says Davoren. “They play a lovely brand of football, a kick-pass style.
“They're very strong around the middle. I'm not too sure, at times we couldn't get over them. They're a great side and have loads of experience in their panel so yeah, we definitely have a challenge on Sunday.
“Probably there's not the same pressure on us. I suppose we'll just take it as the game that it is. It is a big game and there's no point pretending it's not. It is going to be different because the biggest prize is at stake but we're just going to try to play our own game and put all of that to the side.
“To be honest, my mental approach is the same as always. And always it's about controlling the controllables. You know, we can't control how good Kerry are. We can only focus on ourselves.”
