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The importance
of Down’s clash with Roscommon in the All-Ireland
Junior Championship semi-final on August 15th,
speaks for itself. The Mourne County are just
sixty minutes from an All-Ireland final and a
return to Croke Park, their first visit since
1991.
What makes
it even more significant is that 2004 is the Centenary
year of the Camogie Association.
For Down
coach Colleen Reilly though, it’s the 13th
and not the 15th of August which is the more important
date, for Colleen is due to give birth to her
first child just two days before the Roscommon
game!
Colleen
has been a member of the Down squad since 1991
when the Mourne County last won the All-Ireland
Junior Championship. Seven years later in 1998,
she captained Down to an historic first All-Ireland
Intermediate title, defeating Cork in the final.
She had
committed herself to another year in the red and
black but news of her pregnancy changed all that,
as she explained. “When the season ended
last year (2003) I had already decided that after
the winter break, I was definitely playing again
this season but when I found out I was expecting,
the notion of playing Camogie, for 2004 at least,
went out the door.”
But Colleen
didn’t intend to just put her feet up and
take it easy. “Having been playing Camogie
for so long, I still wanted to be involved in
some capacity but I wasn’t too sure what
I could do. Then Bernie McNally (Down Manager)
asked me if I’d be interested in taking,
I suppose ‘supervise’ is a better
word, the physical training at the start of the
year…and that’s what I’ve been
doing since February. I finished that when the
team took a break from training at the beginning
of July but I’m in regular contact with
Bernie and I still go to the training sessions…but
only as an observer now.”
Naturally
Colleen, a teacher at St. Mark's Primary School
in Twinbrook and husband Gareth are delighted
at the pending birth of their first child but
Colleen is resigned to the fact that if all goes
according to plan, she will miss the Roscommon
game. “While I’ll be disappointed
ok, I think I’ll have more important matters
to be dealing with! But, if things are late, I’ll
be at the game.”
Turning
her thoughts to the Roscommon game, the Strangford
native would just love to be playing on the 15th.
“Having won and All-Ireland with Down in
1991 and then having the honour of captaining
the County to the Intermediate All-Ireland title
in ’98, I’d just love another crack
at an All-Ireland. I’m probably not the
world’s greatest spectator and having to
watch from the sidelines has been hard this season.
While the girls have played well this year, there
have been times when I’ve wanted to run
out, grab a hurl and do it myself. I’d much
prefer to be out on the park playing, than anything.
And what
of Down’s chances? “We've already
beaten Roscommon well this year in the league
but we can't afford to be complacent. I'm sure
this will be a much strengthened Roscommon team
from the one we played in the league so we'll
have to be on our guard but, if we play the way
we played against both Armagh and Derry, we'll
be very hard to beat."
Paul Welsh
Fairplay sport and leisure
PEIL one sport one passion
E-mail: info@fairplay.ie
Web: www.fairplay.ie
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