St Flannan’s bow out of ­colleges championship

In bitterly cold conditions at Craughwell on Saturday, St Flannan’s senior camogie team bowed out of the All-Ireland Colleges Championship when suffering a heavy defeat to Loughrea team St Brigid’s.
The scoreline doesn’t reflect fairly on the Flannan’s girls and their coaches, Laura Linnane and Claire Ryan, whose performance, especially in the second half, should have seen them closer to their opponents on the scoreboard when the final whistle sounded.
St Brigid’s opened the scoring with a point in the second minute, after keeper Suzy O’Shea deflected a shot on goal over the bar. O’Shea was kept busy in those opening minutes and pulled off another of couple of saves, giving her side time to settle. Both sides traded points before the Galway side finally got the better of O’Shea when Rachel Monaghan breached the Flannan’s defence for the opening goal.
Monaghan added another two points before Aoibheann Malone pointed again for St Flannan’s. Monaghan, who was a thorn in Flannan’s defence throughout the first half, increased her tally with another point before goaling again in the 25th minute, leaving the last score of the half to Flannan’s Niki Kaiser. The Munster runners-up trailed by seven points at half-time when the score was 2-5 to 0-4 in favour of the Connacht representatives.
The second half started better for Flannan’s but even though they laid siege to the Brigid’s goal area, they just couldn’t finish to the net. Brigid’s again had the opening score of the half before Flannan’s pulled three points back through Malone (1) and Kaiser (2f). St Brigid’s third goal came midway through the half when Monaghan, outnumbered by the Flannan’s defence on the wing, sent a cross to Maria Cooney, who finished to the net. Kaiser converted another free at the start of the final quarter but this was to be Flannan’s last score of the game in the 46th minute as Brigid’s drove on, adding 2-2 to their tally.

St Flannan’s: Suzy O’Shea; Claire McMahon, Clodagh Lawlor, Chloe McAleer; Sinéad Quinn, Aoife Keane, Lauren McGuane; Rachel Mulcaire, Alana O’Brien; Kate O’Neill, Aoibheann Malone (0-3), Orla Devitt (0-1); Niki Kaiser (0-4f), Sinéad O’Keefe, Shauna O’Brien.
Subs: Rae Wall for Lauren McGuane (42 mins).
St Brigid’s: Tara Murphy; Shauna Coen, Ashling Spellman, Laura Sweeney; Laura Porter, Linda Porter, Miriam Reynolds; Ashling Connolly, Aoibheann Kenny; Lauren Lee (1-0), Lorraine Farrelly (0-1), Maria Cooney (2-2); Patricia Manning (0-2), Rachel Monaghan (2-3), Erica Coen.
Referee: Donal Ryan.

Board meeting
The February meeting of Clare Camogie Board takes place next Monday in the Auburn Lodge Hotel, Ennis, at 8.30pm.