Captain Karen Connolly taking nothing for granted as Glencar Manorhamilton go in search of another title

We in the Observer may have anointed them presumptive champions after the League Final but ahead of this year’s Gotham Dry Wall Leitrim LGFA Senior Championship, nobody in Glencar Manorhamilton is taking anything for granted according to captain Karen Connolly.

Fresh from winning the league in imperious fashion, Karen stresses that the hunger for titles is still strong in the Glencar Manorhamilton camp: “You get the hunger for it, the taste of it and it is so hard to let go of that success because it took us so long to get there. I don’t even want to think back to how many finals we lost in a row to get to our first senior title in 2020.

"Ever since then, we’ve been defending it, we’re just so hungry to build and build. We’re not that long at Senior level - we only got our first senior title, a league title, in 2018 and it took us two more years to win the championship. We’ve been defending that ever since and I suppose that is the main goal this year.”

Ballinamore's Eilish O'Dowd helps Dubs to TG4 LGFA Senior title

Glencar Manorhamilton reach Senior Final at prestigious currentaccount.ie All-Ireland Senior Club 7s in Dublin

And that means taking nothing for granted as Karen downplays any notion that the champions are far ahead of the chasing pack: “I wouldn’t say that, it is down to a lot of luck on the day and we take every game as it comes. We can’t take any game for granted either. I’ve no doubt Ballinamore and Kiltubrid will come at us again and push us to the limit.

“Kiltubrid might have been down a few players in the League final, we played them a few weeks before that and it was tit for tat, we might have pulled away the last 20 minutes but if anyone was at the game, it didn’t reflect what was actually going on on the day. You can’t take anything for granted, definitely not.”

For Karen, being back on the field after a couple of tough years with injury is a welcome but she stresses the continuing evolution of the champions with new faces coming in each year to replace some stalwart warriors: “It is actually lovely to get back playing football. 

“The first year in August 2020, I did my cruciate and it was a long struggle to get back, thankfully I did and everything went really well for me, I was fortunate with my recovery and I was back pretty quickly, back in the squad the following year.

“We’ve always got girls coming in and they are constantly challenging us senior girls. If you look back at our team of 2020, the first team to win the championship, I’d say maybe seven or eight of the girls have left. 

“The same with last year, a couple of girls have left, some with injury, some away, some having kids and others went away travelling this year so it is always a new team, it is a fresh start in January each year, we all want to go again and win for each other so it is probably playing for each other out there.”

Incredibly, Karen is one the team’s veterans now but she is inspired by the energy and belief of the young players coming into the squad: “Unfortunately yeah” laughs Karen when asked about being one of the older heads on the panel but adding “we know what the younger ones feel like coming in and they are pushing us Senior players on, they’ve had such huge underage success. 

“They haven’t felt the loss that we might have had when we started out, coming up through the ranks of Junior, Intermediate and Senior - a lot of these girls have come through very successful underage teams, they’re not used to losing so they are pushing us on. It is very competitive in training.”

Aiming at the wrong target

THE LAST POINT

With forwards like Leah Fox, Muireann Devaney and Ailbhe Clancy, much of the focus goes on Manor’s vaunted scoring trio but Karen stresses it is a team effort: “The girls do get a lot of coverage and their names are always thrown out there but it is really a panel, not just the starting 15 because you are lucky enough to get a jersey in Manorhamilton.”

Asked if she is confident of Glencar Manorhamilton successfully defending their title, Karen smiles and says “Optimistically confident.”