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The Clare ladies were very disappointed at losing Saturday's Munster final in Mallow. Photograph by John Kelly.

Veterans lead from the middle


BANNER midfielders Louise Henchy and Niamh Keane added a hint of know-how and experience to the Munster champions.

Along with leading the Banner from the middle of the field, they have also represented Clare, winning an All-Ireland intermediate medal in 2009. Both were ecstatic yet reflective when talking about their club’s greatest day yet on Saturday in Kilmallock.

“Myself and Niamh are two of the longest-serving players in the club. A photo went up during the week of a team back in 1997. You think back today of all those years of training, starting off at U-14,” Henchy said. Just as she was about to expand, Henchy and Keane came under a frenzied water attack from their playing colleagues.

“We’ve a really mature bunch,” Henchy laughed.

“I got the worst of it,” Keane grimaced, though the soaking wasn’t about to dampen their day.

“We must be playing 16 or 17 years and today is the best day. 2009 was unbelievable when we won the [intermediate inter-county] All-Ireland but to do it with your club and the people who are your best friends is just unbelievable,” Keane noted.

She said they headed to Kilmallock intent on giving it everything in the pursuit of glory. “We came out of the blocks with fire in our bellies. They took over for a while after that but we said at half-time that it was going to swing either way and we just had to wait for our time to come back again. At the end, I think we showed a little bit of maturity and a bit of experience by holding the ball. We knew that they were coming at us strong and that there was only a few minutes left. We were counting the minutes down. They were going very slowly but we got the point at the end and, thank God, we got the luck today,” the physiotherapist smiled.

Henchy was keen to remember the people who built the club into the force it is in 2013.

“In the last few years these young girls have come through, which is totally down to the work of lads like Jim Costolloe, Pat O’Driscoll, Joe Reidy, Trisha Ryan and other people, who have put in a huge amount of work with the Banner at underage,” she said.

Henchy admitted that nerves hit herself and Keane hard, the more calendar years they notch up. “Myself and Niamh were nervous wrecks the day of the county final because that’s the way you are when you get older. You think it’s going to be one of your last years and we were going for three in-a-row. But the young ones, it takes nothing out of them. They came down here and it was just like another match,” she noted.

Were they too wrecked to celebrate? “Maybe a sherry or something like that,” Keane suggested.

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