Donnelly helps ‘save’ the day for unbeaten Tyrone Ladies

TYRONE Ladies have enjoyed an unblemished start to their league campaign and one of the main factors in their latest win was the shot-stopping exploits of Caitlin Donnelly last Sunday.

The Red Hands picked up an opening day win against Westmeath nearly a fortnight ago but they knew they would have to really be on their game to get the better of Tipperary in the curtain-raiser at O’Neill’s Healy Park on Sunday.

For long stretches of the second-half, Tipp pushed hard and could’ve pulled away only for a series of outstanding saves from Tyrone ‘keeper Caitlin Donnelly.

It still looked like they were set to clinch a narrow victory but Tyrone never threw in the towel and two late frees from Chloe McCaffrey saved the day for Sean O’Kane’s side.

They now sit joint-top of the Division Two table against Kildare and they’ll be quietly confident of maintaining their 100 percent record when they host a winless Monaghan on Sunday at Moortown.

Commenting on their dramatic victory over Tipp’, Donnelly said: “We’re buzzing with the result, it was a great team effort from the very start. There was a strong breeze coming at us so we had to deal with that as well.

“We wouldn’t want anyone other than Chloe McCaffrey standing over that free to hit the winning point, she was class. It makes it sweeter the way we won, we went for the whole 60 minutes and got a one-point win.”

Tipperary have some excellent performers in their ranks and they began to take control in the second-half with the wind at their backs. Donnelly prevented certain goals on at least two occasions and the rest of her teammates also deserve to share in the credit as they dug deep when needed most to seal a second consecutive victory for the Red Hands.

Donnelly, a club-woman of Fintona, commented: “Every team has their wee purple patch but I think we handled it well and didn’t let them in too often. There were a couple of occasions we did but overall I think we handled it pretyt well. Tipperary beat us last year so it’s great to come out on top this time around, especially in Healy [Park] with a good crowd behind us.”

Next in the pipeline is a Monaghan side in the midst of a transitionary period under their new manager Darren Greenan. While it’s his first year at the helm, he already knows the bulk of his team inside out as he’s managed the bulk of the team at underage level in recent years.

Donnelly said: “We’ve got Monaghan up next and it’s going to be another challenge, league points are hard to come by and we’re glad we already have a few points on the board.”