08-07-2025
Wicklow crush Louth by 48 points, but hard to see how anyone wins on days like that
Wicklow 11-23
Louth 1-5
Echelon Park, Aughrim
With 10 minutes still to play in Aughrim, we discovered that Echelon Park's digital scoreboard doesn't count beyond nine goals; once you hit 10, it returns to zero. Maybe that's for the best.
That's not intended as a smart comment towards the Wicklow GAA County Board; how many among us have attended a game that saw one team's goal count go into the double figures, let alone at a county grounds, typically home to a county's most-keenly-contested games? As oversights go, it's hardly a glaring one.
It's also not intended as a jibe at Louth camogie; they have endured a hugely difficult season, suffering hammering after hammering – Saturday's wasn't even the worst of the lot – but they have continued to tog out. They only conceded one of their five fixtures in the 2025 championship, and players with that kind of stick-to-it spirit deserve fairer competition. There is also skill within their ranks: nippy forward Amy Murray was their best player, but credit, too, to the likes of the combative Aoife Malone-Gregory and goal-scorer Jane Carter.
The Camogie Association has had to rethink things in 2025 with stronger counties no longer permitted to enter 'second' teams. That some weaker counties could not play in 2025 made the equation more complicated. So it's hard to know what the right answer is to that conundrum – but it certainly isn't this. A season such as the one Louth have endured in 2025 does nothing but make life trickier for those trying to promote inter-county camogie in the Wee County.
Closer to home, it's equally true to say Wicklow benefited very little from this, if at all.
The bigger picture is positive for the Garden County at the moment, right enough. Their campaign, as a whole, was solid enough to reach the last four of a tough competition, and they can point to that as another sign of progress. That semi-final will take place against Laois at Breffni Park in Cavan at 2pm on July 19.
Last Saturday's match also doubled up as the previously deferred Leinster Junior Camogie final, so there was a trophy at the end of it for Wicklow. But lifting it in front of a crowd of about 70 people – an understandably low attendance, given that a hammering was always the most likely outcome – will probably not live long in those players' memories.
Laois's surprise win over Armagh sees them top the table and, on past history with Laois, Wicklow will probably feel more confident about facing the O'Moore County than the Orchard County. Previous results also suggest, however, that Wicklow still have a way to go to bridge the gap between themselves and Laois; but they are good enough to be competitive in two weeks' time, and they deserve support in the Breffni County. It will certainly be a better game than the one witnessed last weekend, albeit witnessed by very few.
Wicklow also conducted themselves well on Saturday. They were as professional and ruthless as they had to be to put the game beyond doubt as quickly as possible, but once the match was secured, they did not try to rub it in Louth's faces. They seemed content with taking points, and some of their later goals were not actually attempts at three-pointers; on the one day they weren't crying out for a bit of luck, a few bounces and miscues did go their way. Wicklow manager Rob O'Neill spoke to Louth's players afterwards; O'Neill wants what's best for Wicklow, first and foremost, but he also wants what's best for the game: everybody needs counties such as Louth to plough on and, one day, reach their potential.
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There were bright moments amid the gloom for Louth, none brighter than when Jane Carter knocked in a goal before the break. But, like all of Louth's bright spots, it didn't last long. There was still time for Aisling O'Toole to score Wicklow's seventh and last goal of the half, though O'Toole's three-pointer came from what was, in all likelihood, an attempt at a point, but one that dipped under the crossbar.
Wicklow finished with 11 goals; usually an unthinkable number but, on this day, a figure that had looked possible from a very early juncture. Wicklow were 2-4 to 0-1 clear of Louth by only the seventh minute, and they were dominating Louth's puck-out to such an extent that you knew things could only descend further for the Wee County. Alas, Wicklow ultimately won by 48 points, and there is no utility in going into a traditional match report on that kind of game. They scored 33 times, and almost half of those scores were goals. Louth's 1-5 did add occasional punctuation to Wicklow's many scoring runs, but it was not nearly enough to stop this game becoming the dullest of spectacles.
WICKLOW: Leanne Lifely, Faye Corrigan (0-1), Casey Kelly, Hannah Doyle, Jane Butler, Eimear O'Toole, Sarah Lambe, Shannagh Goetelen (0-1), Sive Byrne (1-1), Niamh McCormack, Sophie Bermingham (3-1), Aoife Nic Dhonnacha (0-2, 1f), Aishling O'Toole (2-5), Elizabeth Bourke (4-7), Ciara Connolly (0-5). SUBS USED: Shauna Ryan for Goetelen (H/T), Holly Byrne for Lifely (H/T), Daisy Summer Cullen-Dunne for O'Toole (H/T), Lifely for Bourke (48), Aoife Molloy (1-0) for Connolly (48)
LOUTH: Niamh Fennell, Áine McKeown, Clodagh Fennell, Rebecca Kirwan, Katie Mathews, Ellen McCarthy, Róisín Killen, Aoife Malone Gregory (0-1, 1f), Aoife McCabe, Aoife Laurence (0-1), Jane Carter (1-1, 1f), Caoimhe Cunningham (0-1), Amy Murray (0-1), Aoife Dillon, Aoibhin Killen. SUBS USED: Paula Lohan for Dillon (41), Julie Guinan for Aoife McCabe (41), Sarah Cahill for A Killen (44).
