Tears for cheers as Meath girls win

Meath camogie players completed a memorable journey when team captain Aileen Donnelly raised the Nancy Murray Cup shortly after 3.30 at Drumlane GAA club, Co Cavan on Sunday. The remote Cavan outpost has hosted a number of camogie games over the last two years and opened its gates again on Sunday to welcome the players from the Royal County and Roscommon for what turned out to be a tense and exciting affair. Meath"s 0-10 to 1-6 victory represented a major step forward for a county that only three years ago could hardly muster 15 players to play in the competition. All that changed with the appointment of former Meath hurling manager John Davis as manager of the fledgling camogie team. Davis had enjoyed considerable success with Meath hurlers for about a decade and the high-point surely had to be the day he sent his team out to play Clare in the NHL Div 1 at Cusack Park, Ennis in 2001. Never a man to stand quietly on the sideline, Davis rose to the challenge of plucking Meath camogie from total obscurity and in his quest for glory he had the backing of both the Camogie Board, under the chairmanship of Christy Mangan, and the players. Last year"s squad achieved a remarkable feat, they lost three finals, one of which included the All-Ireland decider for the same Nancy Murray Cup when they fired blanks in the second-half and were overhauled close to the final whistle. The tears of despair that flowed that day at Leixlip were replaced on Sunday by tears of joy when Kilmessan woman Donnelly finally got her hands on the precious trophy. About 40 years ago, her late mother, Brigid, brought a Leinster junior title to Meath. Now that gap has been bridged again. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Aileen Donnelly raised the cup aloft to huge cheers and applause from the estimated crowd of 500 who all waited for the ceremony. 'This is a very emotional day for us, we went through a lot in the past 12 months and some of the girls who were with us last year were not able to join the panel this year' she commented. 'I know that the Roscommon girls are disappointed now, but I can honestly say that I know how they feel, we lost three finals last year, but we were determined to come back from that and make amends and we did,' she concluded as the celebrations began in earnest and took the players and officials back to Knightsbrook in Trim. Meath had to work hard for victory and were adrift by 0-5 to 1-3 at the interval as Roscommon gave it their all in an effort to avoid a third defeat by Meath this year. The Roscommon girls had already lost the Div 4 league decider to Meath, but they were unable to survive a resolute Royal County challenge in the second-half. Coach Davis promised that the next target would be the 2009 final which would get Meath into Croke Park where the higher grade finals are played.