Knockmore have no storm to weather as Burris’ girls fail to fire
Knockmore had the most straightforward of starts to their 2025 senior championship campaign when coasting to victory at rain-sodden St Joseph’s Park last Sunday morning. Indeed if there was one thing more miserable than the weather conditions, it might just have been the mood of the Burrishoole players who over the course of the sixty minutes managed to score only once.
Knockmore, last year’s beaten finalists and champions in 2021 and ’23, had just a goal to spare over Burrishoole in last season’s corresponding fixture, however, they emerged as twelve points winners over the 2022 champions despite not scoring for the final 25 minutes of a match that was played in the wettest, most blustery conditions imaginable for the last day of August.
The visitors played into the teeth of a stiff diagonal breeze in the first-half and while they did register two wides inside three minutes, those were Burrishoole’s sole attempts at points in the entire opening thirty minutes. The West Mayo outfit were to struggle badly off their own kickouts, with Knockmore’s intense press yielding goals for Katie Langan and Lara Sweeney in the eighth and ninth minutes, with intercepts by the corner-forwards Clodagh Keane and Amy O’Connor key to both scores.
Sweeney added three points from frees in the first-half too, there was a brace from play by the ever-industrious Sarah Mulvihill and one point from the boot of Amy O’Connor, whose direct running posed a major problem for the Burrishoole defence from start to finish.
Burrishoole trailed by 2-6 to no score at half-time, with their only other scoring chance so far coming when a free by Ava Palasz dropped into the Knockmore goalmouth where Caoife Moran’s snatched effort at goal was blocked and cleared by a defender.
Playing into the wind was to prove less of an obstacle to Knockmore in the second-half than it had to their opponents. Where the latter had gone an entire half without scoring, the hosts had three points on the board inside six minutes of the restart when the roles were reversed. Hannah Reape had already struck the post in the second-half when the midfielder scored Knockmore’s opening point of the new period on 33 minutes and that was swiftly followed by a quickfire brace from Amy O’Connor to see the Saffron and Blue lead by fifteen points, 2-9 to 0-0, after 36 minutes.
Remarkably, though, the remainder of the game would see just one more score, that when Leona Ryder palmed Caoife Moran’s free into the Knockmore net in the 41st minute for what was Burrishoole’s one and only contribution to the scoreboard. Much of that, however, was due to some outstanding work by the Knockmore defence, with Nina McVann and Ciara Durkan particularly to the fore.
Knockmore will expect stiffer challenges from their remaining group games, which will see them take on Kilmovee Shamrocks and Hollymount, but you should write off Burrishoole at your peril. They were without past and present Mayo footballers Ciara McManamon and Lucy Wallace on Sunday and their return would be a significant boost in the hunt for quarter-final qualification.
Scorers – Knockmore: Lara Sweeney 1-3, Katie Langan 1-0, Amy O’Connor 0-3, Sarah Mulvihill 0-2, Hannah Reape 0-1.
Burrishoole: Leona Ryder 1-0.
Knockmore: Grace Naughton; Nina McVann, Roisin Flynn, Emily Hughes; Emily Reape, Ciara Durkan, Emily Duffy; Hannah Reape, Sarah Mulvihill; Katie Langan, Rachel Fox, Katie Munnelly; Amy O’Connor, Lara Sweeney, Clodagh Keane. Subs: Roisin Langan (for Fox ht), Sarah Dempsey (for Keane 42), Caitlin Bourke (for Duffy 47), Siofragh Kelly and Mia Traynor (for Sweeney and Munnelly 54).
Burrishoole: Grainne McManamon; Carla Palasz, Alana McDonnell, Chloe Donnellan; Clodagh McManamon Jnr, Clodagh McManamon, Grace McDonnell; Jennifer Cawley, Doireann Guilfoyle; Kieva Treacy, Ava Palasz, Caoife Moran; Hannah Sheehy, Leona Ryder, Louise Sheridan.
REF: Kevin Corcoran (Islandeady)
