Gailltír boost as captain Margo Heffernan fit for All-Ireland final

Margo Heffernan

Gailltír’s bid to kickstart a weekend of historic wins for east Waterford clubs has been boosted by captain Margo Heffernan’s availability for Saturday’s AIB All-Ireland club camogie intermediate final.

A broken hand ruled Heffernan out of November’s Munster’s final win over Thurles Sarsfields and she didn’t feature in the All-Ireland semi-final defeat of Clarinbridge before Christmas.

Her presence in Thurles on Saturday would be a big boost to Gailltír, who face St Rynagh’s of Offaly in a repeat of the March, 2020 final.

On Sunday, Ballygunner — an area that Gailltír source players from and with strong links between the two teams — will play Kilmallock in the AIB Munster club hurling senior final.

“She was back training before the Clarinbridge game,” said Gailltír goalkeeper Ciara Jackman of Heffernan.

“We didn’t choose to play her that day but she’s back flying in training. She’s a formidable leader, such a great character in training for us. She’s just a role model the way she approaches it.

“We’re delighted she’s back able to train so we have no injuries or anything for the final. We have a full strength panel.”

Jackman, whose sister Una struck the match-winning goal in the 2020 final, is hopeful that it will be a weekend to remember for clubs in the region.

“There are four different areas to Gailltír which would be Faithlegg, Dunmore East, Ballygunner, and Passage,” she said.

“Ballygunner and Passage would be the two hurling clubs so our team would be divided nearly half and half between girls from Ballygunner and girls from Passage.

“There’d be a good few cousins between the two teams. Obviously you’d have Emily Mahony (sister of Ballygunner duo Pauric and Philip) and we’d have other cousins, things like that.

“Please God, there’ll be two titles coming back at the end of the weekend.”

If Gailltír can heap more misery on St Rynagh’s — they also beat the Offaly side in the semi-finals in 2019 — they would be promoted to the senior ranks as back-to-back intermediate winners.

“Ultimately that’s the big goal,” said Jackman. “We’d love to get the chance to have a go at the kingpins of camogie across Ireland. But we don’t have that opportunity at the minute, we have a huge match ahead of us before we can even think about getting up to the senior ranks.”