Galway kick off camogie championship with win over Wexford

The All-Ireland senior camogie championship got under way with Veronica Curtin rolling back the years by coming off the bench to score 2-2 as Galway beat three-in-a-row chasing Wexford 2-14 to 0-9.

Curtin scored two injury time goals to enable Galway go into a seven-point interval lead despite having been on the receiving end of much Wexford pressure. Susan Earner made a couple of stunning saves to deny the All-Ireland champions as well.

Kate Kelly scored Wexford’s only point from play early in the second half – Ursula Jacob was their leading scorer with seven points from frees – but despite having the wind in their favour, JJ Doyle’s charges were blitzed by Galway, who scored seven successive points to put this game to bed.

As expected, Kilkenny were made to work extremely hard by the 2010 intermediate champions Offaly before winning by 4-17 to 2-11. The final scoreline didn’t do justice to the Faithful women’s efforts as they recovered from an early six-point deficit to draw level and were still just 2-9 to 1-7 in arrears at the interval.

The crucial score of the game arrived just after the interval when Michelle Quilty, who finished with 2-7, goaled to make Offaly’s task very difficult. With Anne Dalton bringing her tally to five points from play and Aoife Neary also amongst the goals, Ann Downey’s charges were able to pull clear.

Cork were comfortable 3-16 to 0-10 winners over Clare but given that the margin between the sides had been 27 points in the Munster final last month, this performance will come as a massive boost to the Banner girls.

Síle Burns was the star of the show, scoring 3-4 from play and with Gemma O’Connor a powerful presence at centre-back, not even the best efforts of Claire McMahon and Deirdre Murphy could deny the Leesiders.

Tipperary also had to dig deep before coming out on top against Dublin, 3-12 to 0-12, with Sarah Fryday scoring two goals and Noreen Flanagan bagging another in injury time.