It is hard to imagine a game where the scoreline does not reflect the game more than this one. Ballyduff pressed hard early on and were rewarded with a goal within 10 minutes. Mooncoin responded almost immediately with an excellent goal from Emily Blackmore, following some resolute defending from Kayla O’Keeffe Bolger. The game was end to end with opportunities for both teams and Mooncoin felt very hard done by to go in at the break 2-1 down. This is particularly the case after an excellent shot from Emily seemed to cross the goal-line. Calls for VAR were ignored by the referee.

A number of Mooncoin players were carrying knocks or feeling unwell at half-time, which necessitated a few unexpected changes. This seemed to break our flow and Ballyduff pushed ahead into a 4-1 lead. A speculative effort by Emily caught their keeper unawares and we were back to 4-2 and pushing hard. Ballyduff gave as good as they got and it took some excellent saves from Mia Ponce de Leon to keep us in the game. However, the Ballyduff pressure eventually took its toll and they put the game beyond us.

Mooncoin brought on all of the subs and the team battled hard to the very end and were unfortunate not to close the gap. Ballyduff were physically a much bigger team than us but that did not stop many of our girls from competing for every ball. Indeed, the referee declared Luiseach Donohue the Player of the Match, and it’s hard to argue with him ,as she was a dynamo out there . Kayla Bolger also put in an equally impressive player of the game performance .