AS THE STRANGEST of years reaches its conclusion, the curtain comes down on the domestic women’s football season at Tallaght Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
Peamount United are hoping to make it a 2020 double in the FAI Cup final [KO 3.15pm, live on RTÉ 2] but it’s fair to say that Cork City have other plans.
The young and ambitious Leesiders are back in the showpiece for the first time since their history-making victory in the Aviva Stadium in 2017, and they’re hoping to inflict more cup final heartbreak on Peamount.
There’s no doubt about it, the Dubliners come into this one as firm favourites, though a victory would be a case of third time lucky in this particular decider after back-to-back defeats to Wexford Youths. And Cork will be eyeing their own third time’s a charm story, after two league defeats at the hands of Peas this year.
Both teams come in with momentum on their side — Peamount beat Wexford 2-1 last weekend, while City produced the same result against Galway to seal a fourth-place finish — and both are littered with serious talent: Áine O’Gorman, Niamh Reid Burke, Niamh Farrelly, Claire Walsh and Karen Duggan all play for the league champions, and that’s just looking at international players, while dual diamond Saoirse Noonan and Éabha O’Mahony are among the regular Cork headline-hitters.
Two of the latter’s other big performers this year have been Danielle Burke and Zara Foley. 21 and 18 respectively, they epitomise this Cork team. They’re both well able to talk the talk, as well as walking the walk, and have interesting back stories.
While their team-mates Noonan and hockey star Christina Dring play two sports at a high level, Burke and Foley eat, sleep and breathe just football now having enjoyed colourful sporting paths.
“I have three older brothers and both my parents are mad into football as well,” Burke smiles, “I was just kind of born into it.” From mixing it with the boys at the Passage Academy between the ages of four and 16 — which she says has really stood to her and is, in turn, a big advocate for mixed gender football like Irish boss Vera Pauw — to dropping Gaelic football and camogie, football is her focus and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Having signed for Cork City once she could, reformed centre-back Burke is well-versed to speak about how special the club is.
“It’s a huge part of my life, we train nearly every day so you’re surrounded by the girls and management quite a lot. It’s a really good environment, everyone looks out for each other. It’s been a huge stepping stone for me, growing as a player and a person, so I’m really grateful to be a part of the club.”
It’s fair to say CCFC means a lot, but what about winning tomorrow?
Simply, everything.
“Honestly, it would just mean so much to us,” the CIT Marketing student beams. “This year has been awful for everyone, the lockdown and everything going wrong. Football is one thing that really kept us going so I think it would just be the perfect reward for all the girls putting in so much effort and work. It really would mean everything to us.”
And even more so, given it’s a few players’ last game in the beloved green jersey, one of those captain Maria O’Sullivan as she prepares to head to New York on a scholarship. “We just want to finish on a high for them and have positive memories that they can take with them to the States. It’s going to be an emotional one, but hopefully for the best.”
Foley, likewise, is firmly rooted on Leeside for now anyway, though professional football is undoubtedly a lifelong dream. Having experienced the 2020 Leaving Cert fiasco first-hand, the Ballincollig native is happy to have that “weird, frantic” time in the rear-view mirror as she studies art in college, showing her creativity on and off the pitch.
Like Burke, Foley was always destined to play football with her older brother, Dylan, also lining out for Cork City and Cobh Ramblers. While excelling at athletics, taekwondo and camogie in her younger years, “I knew in my heart that soccer was the one,” she says.
And a first senior international call-up at the age of 16 ultimately meant it took precedence there and then. “If you’re going to be an elite athlete, you have to choose one,” were the words of then-manager Colin Bell.
“It had to be soccer so I dropped the other sports to concentrate on it mostly.”
She’s happy with the decision, at peace with focusing 100% on football and working hard to get back into the Girls In Green set-up. But the entire focus, for now, is on tomorrow, and the height of the challenge ahead.
“Peamount are an unreal team, it’s going to be very difficult,” Foley concedes. “They’re just amazing, they have a few Irish internationals in there and they’re a very tough team to play against.
“We’re going in as the underdogs but I think that’s good for us, there’s no pressure on us. We’ll just go after it.”
She knows they need to do just that from the start, having previously given them maybe too much respect, but amending that in the second half of the sides’ second league meeting, where they kept them scoreless.
Cork come in peaking at the right time, not long after a confidence-boosting six-game winning run with the rewards of hard work over lockdown being reaped through much-improved consistency.
“It’s been our best season in quite a while,” as Burke nods. “At the start of the season, our aim was to get top four and into the cup final. We’ve done that, so we’re buzzing with that.
“Peamount are an excellent side, we haven’t got a win against them this season. They’re very organised, an experienced team. We know what to expect, we’re familiar with them.”
There’s a small bit of disappointment that the game has been taken out of the Aviva and that family members cannot attend as things stand , with memories from 2017 living long in the memory, but Burke and her side will get on with it.
“It’s all about the final, the 90 minutes, it’s not really about where it’s being played. And hopefully we can make our families proud watching on.”
They’ll do just that, regardless of the result, with those incredible scenes from 2017 and Clare Shine’s all-important winner certainly to the forefront of everyone at the clubs’ minds this week.
“Ah, she was unreal, but hopefully we have our own little Clare Shines in the team again this year,” Burke concludes with a smile.
No doubt they do, and they’ll step up as the curtain comes down tomorrow.
