Tulla school chases All-Ireland double

CAMOGIE players, officials and supporters from St Joseph’s Secondary School in Tulla will travel in big numbers to St Brendan’s Park in Birr on Saturday for the All-Ireland Senior D Camogie final, in which they will play Scoil Mhuire from Trim at 1.45pm.

They will make the same journey on Saturday week to play the same opposition in the junior final and should they manage to win both games, it would mark the first occasion that the school captured both titles in the same season.

On their way to Saturday’s senior final, St Joseph’s defeated Kilmacthomas from Waterford in the Munster final and followed this with a runaway win over Lucan Community School from Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final at Feakle.

“We don’t know anything about our opponents in Saturday’s senior final other than the fact that they are an all-girls Mercy school,” commented Tulla mentor, Donna Fitzgerald.

Donna and fellow teacher Declan Spellman are in charge of the senior team, whose players are drawn from Tulla, Kilkishen, Feakle, Clooney-Quin and Broadford. The team is captained by Shauna Fleming from Kilkishen, who is likely to play at centre-back.

They will also be looking to Aoife Tuohy, Regan Conway, Áine McInerney and Kate O’Gorman to help them get the upperhand on their Leinster opponents.

A number of the Clare school’s team have played for Clare at underage level and some are on the current county minor and U-16 teams. The experience they have gained at these levels should help them on Saturday when a number of the junior panel will be involved, including junior captain Edel McNamara, who hails from Kilkishen.

Donna Fitzgerald is also a selector with the junior side and is joined by Rita Forristal and Catherine Tobin as the mentors guiding this outfit. “The girls have trained hard all season and all are looking forward to the final. We hope to have a big following in Birr for the game,” commented Donna.