Aileen Wall will lead the Ballymacarbry ladies onto the hallowed turf of Croke Park for the first time on Saturday evening.
The former Waterford attacker was only thirteen when she got her senior debut with the club. “I think they just felt sorry for me! I was tagging along to all the trainings anyway with Linda and Mairéad so they just threw me a jersey! It was great to be involved so early.”
She followed her sisters Linda and Mairéad down to the Millfield in Ballymacarbry. “Wherever they went, I seemed to pop up! Getting a ball behind the goals or handing someone a water bottle.”
Linda has retired now but Mairéad will run out alongside her younger sibling in Croke Park on Saturday. She gave birth the day of the county final but is back on the training field. “Thankfully, Mairéad and Sinéad Kenrick have returned to the panel. They were away from us for a while but they’re back on board now. They really did miss it so it’s great that they can be part of it again. Nobody wants to miss out on going to Croke Park!”
Ballymacarbry went down by fourteen points to Kilkerrin-Clonberne last year. Wall wants to make amends on Saturday. “We’re a very different side to the team that we were last year. We were hoping we would win the Munster but a semi final was out of this world. It came at the wrong time for us, we were on a bit of a decline. Kilkerrin-Clonberne were building towards an All Ireland final; that was their goal. That wasn’t the goal for us. This year, as the matches have gone on, we’ve realised that we could go a bit further and we’ve been able to plan accordingly. Fitness is really good at the moment. That was something that let us down last year. We faded and we couldn’t keep up with them. This year, we’re on the right track and we’ve set everything up for a crack at the final.”
Listen to the full interview with Aileen Wall on Friday's Lár Na Páirce from 6.10.
WLR will broadcast the game live this Saturday with thanks to George Corbett Skoda. Join Tomás McCarthy and Michael Ryan from 4.45.
https://www.gcorbett-motors.com/
