North-West Region triumph to become first ever Ladies Railway Cup Champions!

The two Liverpool teams of JMU and Liverpool Hope put aside their differences from last weekend's British Championships to combine together to represent the North-West region.  After a short train journey to Manchester during which the JMU manager  was left behind on the platform, the girls arrived at their much improved accommodation (no offence Fiona!) in the centre of the city.  After the first of many McDonald's meals (!), the JMU girls headed to the obligatory Irish bar for some team bonding with their Hope counterparts.  Their Scottish opponents, also staying in the same hotel, were already propping up the bar and enjoying Manchester's Irish hospitality!

The introductions over with, the team headed off to the Hough End pitches on the Saturday morning onboard the Scottish coach, via the lovely accommodation from last weekend!  The coach driver's slow tour round the outskirts of Manchester gave the JMU (Niall Meenan) and Hope manager (Ronan McBride) plenty of time to decide on a starting line-up.  Early on into the match it was clear that the Scottish girls were going to put up little resistance to the strong, combined Liverpool team.  The North-West team dominated the match, putting score after score on the board.  The team's forwards ran the game almost by themselves, and despite the Scottish team having 3 players 'borrowed' from the North-West region, they were unable to turn the game around in the second half, although they put in a much improved display.

The match finished with the North-West triumphant, Scotland grabbing just a couple of scores towards the end of the match.  Both teams stayed to watch the men's semi-final between the North-West and London, where the North-West girls saw their male counterparts beaten in a highly controversial game involving 2 penalties being awarded to the Londoners.  All teams headed off to Manchester's Irish Centre for the official presentations of the cups and medals to the ladies champions.  The victorious team made their way to McDonald's once again to celebrate in style, before going for a few quiet drinks (mainly coke, as the AllStars trials were taking place in the morning!).

Sunday dawned with the chance of selection for the British Universites AllStars squad.  Girls from all the regions participating were given an opportunity to impress the British Universities Ladies Gaelic Football Coordinator, George O'Rouke, through a series of small forwards-versus-backs games.  All players from the North-West regional squad have been selected for the AllStars squad, and now wait to hear who will be in the starting 15.  Afterwards, the North-West team headed for a belated celebratory drink from the cup (one player downing the entire contents herself!) before attempting to get a bus back to the centre of town!  

Another short train journey later (this time everyone onboard!) and it was not long before the girls could be found singing and dancing in the corner of our favourite Irish bar, Pogue Mahones!  The team then staggered what seemed at the time like a very long way to the JMU Student's Union (all bar Claire Hackett from Hope who was barred after her efforts in the bar last week after Hope had beaten JMU!) where the cup was filled and subsequently emptied more times than anyone can remember!  A little karaoke and a lot more drinks later, and it was decided that the party was at Mary's house apparently!

I can safely say that a great weekend was had by all, and an even better Sunday night celebrating the victory!  I would like to thank the organisers of the tournament, particularly George O'Rouke, and the referee Sean Hackett (although the boys may disagree!) for giving us the opportunity to prove that the North-West have the greatest ladies Gaelic Football teams in Britain!  I'd also like to thank everyone of the players involved, especially those from Liverpool Hope, who didn't rub in our double defeat from last weekend too much!  I think that everyone made a few new friends and all of us here at JMU discovered that those girls from Hope aren't actually all that bad after all!  We'll still beat them at the North of England Championships though!!

(Caroline Digby)

JMU girls selected to represent region:

North-West Regional Team 2002