LIKE Dermot Kennedy in Thomond Park last Sunday night, Laura O’Mahony is hoping Cork hit all the right notes in their TG4 All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Armagh.
The Skibbereen footballer only has to think back to the same stage of last year’s championship as a reminder of what can go wrong, as the Rebels were dumped out by Mayo, but O’Mahony is convinced Better Days lie ahead for Cork.
Win away in the Athletic Grounds on Saturday afternoon (3.30pm, live on TG4) and the Rebels move one step closer to Paradise.
‘We’re going up on Friday so that will help break the journey because we need to make sure we perform against Armagh,’ O’Mahony says.
‘They are a really good team, they topped their group, but we will focus on ourselves and make sure what happened last year doesn't happen again.’
The Cork star enjoyed Dermot Kennedy wow his fans in Limerick last weekend, but is confident the Rebels will shine on centre stage in the business end of the championship. They Won’t Back Down, boosted by their performance in their latest game – an emphatic 8-12 to 2-3 hammering of Tipperary in Clonakilty. That guaranteed Cork the runner-up spot in Group 4 behind Galway, but also meant they are away in their quarter-final against an Armagh team that topped Group 1 after beating Mayo and Laois. The Orchard County also won all seven Division 2 league games and were promoted back to the top tier earlier in the season.
‘Against Tipperary, that’s the game where we can say that we performed at our best for maybe 45 minutes,’ says O’Mahony, who started at wing back.
Consistency within games and from game to game has been an issue, but Cork’s rout of Tipp suggested they are finding form at the right time. Before that Shane Ronayne’s team had lost away to Galway in their championship opener, which had come straight after Cork’s Munster final win against league champions Kerry; the Rebels led 4-10 to 0-7 at half time, having blitzed the Kingdom.
‘In the three championship games before the Munster final we played for 15 minutes at a time, but to be fair to the girls in the first half of the Munster final that was the best performance we had all year. Then we slipped in the second half. We know we need to perform in order to win. That’s a minimum: to get that performance. If we can back up the performance against Tipp last time out, it will give us a chance,’ O’Mahony explains.
While Eimear Kiely is ruled out with a knee injury the good news is that experienced forward Ciara O’Sullivan is available to line out against Armagh after the red card she received against Tipp was overturned. O’Sullivan was one of 13 different scorers against Tipp, including O’Mahony who has started the last two games after a hip flexor injury picked up against Galway in February ruled her out of the remaining three league games. The O’Donovan Rossa footballer was out of action for six weeks, but returned in time for the Munster campaign, eager to make up for lost time. She was also juggling her final year of studies in UCC so it was all-go for a period, and now her focus is fully on Cork and their All-Ireland bid. Win on Saturday, and Cork will feel like Giants heading into the semi-finals, with the winners of Armagh v Cork to meet either Donegal or Dublin in the last four on July 29th at Semple Stadium.
This weekend’s TG4 All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals (all live on TG4) are: Saturday – Galway v Mayo (Salthill, 1.30pm), Armagh v Cork (Athletic Grounds, 3.30pm), Kerry v Meath (Tralee, 7.30pm); Sunday – Donegal v Dublin (Ballybofey, 2pm).
