Our Junior camogie team travelled to Hugginstown on Friday night last

to play Carrickshock in the 3rd Round of the Junior Championship. With

only 16 players available, due to exam and other commitments, the task

seemed onerous.

 

The girls faced the challenge head on and emerged victorious on a score

line of Carrickshock 0.4 to O'Loughlins 0.12. A great win and a super

performance from all 16 girls to collect our third consecutive victory

and leave us on full points heading in to a 5 week break for leaving

cert and college exams. Thanks especially to Aoife Nolan who made

herself available to assist us given the depleted numbers and best

wishes to her on her return to work in Canada later this month.

 

Well done to all on this victory and the plan over the coming weeks is

for some serious skills and fitness training as well as a number of

challenge matches to ensure qualification as Group A winners - our 1st

of 2 Goals for 2014. The final 2 Group games, against Emeralds and

Slieverue, will be played in July.

 

The management team will be looking for all panelists to fully commit

for the remainder of the Championship to achieve Goal number 2.

O'Loughlins Junior Camogie team picked up their second brace of points in their Round 2 clash away to Thomastown on Sunday winning 5-9 to 4-3.Leading by 2 points at half time, after a very unconvincing first 30 minutes, the girls upped the intensity in the second half to win convincingly. The final score was O'Loughlins 5.9 to Thomastown 4.3 but there will be tougher challenges ahead and the girls know that this performance will not be good enough to beat other opponents as the year goes on.

The most important thing was the points and they are secured. Liam Egan, trainer, will be anxious to get back to training to work on the skills and teamwork. Our minor camogie team play Conahy at 7pm in John's Park on Wednesday next so the Juniors will train at 6.15 that evening. Training will resume for all at 6.30 on Friday.

Next weekend sees a break from the competitive action with the next 
match set for 9th May away to Carrickshock

Best of Luck to our U-14 Girls in their Feile semi final this Saturday at 2pm in Clara, they take on the Emeralds.

Our junior Camogie girls picked up their first brace of points with a very good win against Mooncoin away from home on Saturday night in the ACL. Mooncoin had contested the Junior Championship final in 2013 and O’Loughlins, with only 17 available to travel, appeared to be really up against it in this one. However it did not turn out that way and it was obvious that Liam Egan's training and coaching is starting to yield results.

The final score was O'Loughlins 1:11 to Mooncoin's 2:05 and the away team were full value for the win. Most pleasing in this game was the teamwork and work-rate of all 17 of the girls. At least 5 of their points were worked through 4 or 5 players with hand-passes, movement and excellent support play resulting in top class scores. Our defence was superbly marshalled by Rebecca Cleere at centre back, as she swept the entire backline and delivered long clearances time after time. Lizzie Kavanagh in goal was her usual steady self while the other backs were solid throughout, though improvement is needed in our striking which is being worked on constantly by Liam. The year is young yet and some extra work is needed by all players outside of the scheduled training.

At midfield the 2 Laura's were on top for most of the match and the switch of Sarah Bourke to midfield, with Laura Murphy moving to centre forward, with 15 minutes to go worked a treat. Our forwards played some lovely Camogie to create scores and could have been rewarded further but for some poor striking at times. Overall, it was a very satisfactory display and we can look forward to next weekend’s second round Championship match against Thomastown away from home.

Training will continue at 6:30 on Wednesday and Friday of this week and large turnouts are expected. Competition for places is going to be interesting as the club strives for Intermediate status in 2015. Keep up the good work girls! 

Our U-14 team beat Clara, St Martin’s and Kilmacow last Saturday to reach a Feile semi- final. The girls will play the Emeralds from Urlingford in two weeks time. All in O’Loughlin Gaels wishes them well.

 
Our U-16 team had a very good win over Tullogher Rosbercon in first round of the league last Wednesday night in St John's Park winning  3-4 to 2-2. Well done girls!

 

The junior camogie team beat Tullogher in the first league game of the season . Score : 1-15 to 1-05