Antrim underdogs ready to upset the odds in All-Ireland final
Michael Bolton
Ahead of the All-Ireland ladies' football final on Saturday, one of the stories of the season has been Moneyglass.
A small village from Antrim, they are the first side from the county to win an Ulster title, having shocked the likes of Clann Éireann and Errigal Ciarán.
Many people expected their journey to end in the All-Ireland semi-finals against last season's runners-up, Kilmacud Crokes, but Moneyglass had other ideas.
Speaking ahead of the All-Ireland final against Kilkerrin-Clonberne, forward Maria O'Neill said the community is in high spirits.
"The whole community is kind of buzzing. Obviously, this is the first time for not only us as a club, but for any Antrim team to be in an All-Ireland senior final. Everybody is talking about it, everyone's wishing you luck.
"I think everyone was a bit shocked because our main goal at the start of the year was obviously to try to win Ulster and try to get out of Ulster, as it has been the past four years, and we failed the past four years.
"So to get out of Ulster was unreal, and we kind of knew that when we came into the All-Ireland scene that it was a whole different kind of ball game, like the physicality level, you were coming up against really, really big county players and all the rest of it.
"We went into the game with the kind of perspective that it was going to be a really tough game and we'd just give it a shot and see how well we could get on.
"To come out the winning side of it, I think everyone was just really, really shocked, and everyone was absolutely thrilled and over the moon. Now we're in an All-Ireland final, and it doesn't get better than this."
Coming into Saturday, the lead-up to the final could not be more different for the two sides.
For Kilkerrin-Clonberne, they are chasing a fifth All-Ireland title in a row, with the pressure off Moneyglass.
No matter what happens, Saturday will be historic, and the Antrim forward enjoys going into Croke Park as the underdogs.
"You hear a lot of talk about Kilkerrin-Clonberne, how they're such a strong team, and they've been together, and they've won four All-Irelands.
"That's some accomplishment. People maybe don't look at us as much and haven’t been talking about us as much, but I'd probably much prefer that. We're just here to give it our best shot. So it kind of does take the pressure off a little bit.
"As much as the pressure is on to try to stop their five-in-a-row and get the win on the day, I don't think there's any external pressure. I think we're all really happy with the position that we're in, and we're just looking forward to it."
It has been an impressive season for O'Neill, whose scoring in the forward line saw Antrim in the All-Ireland junior final, where they lost to Louth.
However, many of the Antrim team have put the disappointment behind them with their performances for Moneyglass, in what O'Neil believes is a special time for Antrim football.
"I feel like people maybe look past Antrim a wee bit in terms of, as you say, we lost the junior final there in August, which was really disappointing, but we lost to a really strong Louth team and at the end of the day, you win some, you lose some.
"We have maybe five or six Moneyglass girls on the county panel, so we were all there for that. So we kind of brought what we had done in the county into the club.
"But the quality of football in Antrim has really, really stepped up over the last few years, and I feel like that's been really shown through the county season this year and through our Moneyglass club season."
