Mitchelstown native and Tipperary ladies senior football manager, Shane Ronayne, has revealed that a few ‘home truths’ were told at half-time as his side overturned a six-point first-half deficit on Sunday last to eventually win by two in the Lidl Ladies National Football League Division 3 final against Wexford.
Despite losing three players to second half sin-binnings, and finishing the game with 13 players, Tipperary held out in an enthralling replay against Wexford at St Brendan’s Park, Birr.
Beaten finalists after a replay with Waterford last year, Tipperary got over the line this time to secure promotion to Division 2.
“We lacked belief in the first-half. Perhaps losing last year’s league final to Waterford and the championship quarter-final was a factor with confidence, but after some harsh words at half-time the girls emerged in the second-half a different side and with the wind on our backs we scored seven points in a row and that was a big factor in us winning the game,” said the team’s manager, Shane Ronayne.
Shane, who is son of Maureen and Philip Ronayne, previously worked alongside Eamon Ryan with the Cork senior ladies team and also guided Mourneabbey to All-Ireland senior club final appearances in 2014 and 2015, as well as managing UCC to O’Connor Cup glory in 2012.
He teaches at Coláiste Dun Iascaigh in Cahir and in his time there, has overseen four All-Ireland titles (three girls and one boys). Ronayne is now coach with Mitchelstown intermediate men’s team and is a former Cahir senior men’s team manager. He has also previously been in charge of the Tipperary ladies intermediate team (2008), as well as the minors and U16s.
TARGET ONE ACHIEVED – TWO REMAIN
Looking ahead to the championship in June, Shane is looking to add a few more girls to his Tipperary squad.
“I’ll be hoping to look at a few more girls. We set ourselves three targets at the beginning of the year (National League, Munster championship and All-Ireland championship), we won the league so we now face Limerick in June in Munster and we look forward to that. We need to tweak a few things but our first target has been achieved and the girls will benefit from coming out the right side of a very tight competitive final.”
