A recent move out of home may have denied Foxrock/Cabinteely captain Amy Ring the chance of in-depth footballing discussions her father and team manager Pat, but she’s not getting to vent with her new housemates either.
Ring and her Foxrock-Cabinteely team-mates are on the march towards their first ever Ladies football senior club title, with Cork champs Mourneabbey awaiting in Saturday’s All-Ireland final, but considering she now shares a house with members of the Sarsfields team they defeated in the Leinster final, she is getting little sympathy as the pre-game nerves ramp up this week.
The Laois girls faltered in the provincial final as Foxrock-Cabinteely eased their way to a fourth straight Leinster title and Amy helped herself to a 2-4 haul, but after losing the 2016 All-Ireland final, Amy thinks her new surroundings might be a blessing in disguise.
“It’s pretty exciting around home. I probably don’t feel it as much this year. I moved out of home last year,” said Amy, who will lead her side out at Parnell Park on Saturday.
When we were in the final a couple of years ago, myself and my Dad were up to 90 a little bit. This year I only see him at training and things like that so we are both probably a bit calmer this time round. It is exciting though and the whole team are looking forward to the game now.
I live with a few of the Sarsfields players from Laois so they definitely don’t want to be talking to me about football right now. We are not talking about the game too much, which might be no harm.
Sometimes you have to step back a bit to appreciate those things. Then you think, ‘God, we’ve done four in a row’. We are a young enough club and haven’t been around for a lot of years, so four Leinsters in a row is brilliant, and it wasn’t taken for granted.
And while Foxrock-Cabinteely have been blessed by their provincial dominance, there has been little solace once they get to the All-Ireland series. In their four attempts they have been beaten twice by Monaghan side Donaghmoyne, and last season in the last four by Mourneabbey. Three weeks ago, the Dubliners avenged those losses to Donaghmoyne, and they want to down the Cork side now.
“Hopefully those days will stand to us. When you lose big matches you almost have to try and tell yourself that we are losing these so that there are better things to come.
“In the last few years losing the semi-finals...we had a lot of losses to Donaghmoyne over the years, so that probably stood to us when we did play them.
“But Mourneabbey, we played them last year, they are a super team and there will probably be very little in it on Saturday. I think whatever is in it, it could be down to a bounce of the ball or a referee’s decision. It could be that tight.
“I think both teams will be drawing from their own experiences on the last few years to get them over the line.”
