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Women in Sport

17th Nov 2019

One of best ladies footballers in country left out of All-Star team

Niall McIntyre

Honest to good God, what more can a woman do?

February 2019.

Tipperary are up with the big dogs now. Having won Division Three in 2017, and followed it up with the Division Two title in 2018, this is where they want to be.

Division One. The top table. Up against your Dublins, Mayos, Galways and Corks – the best teams in the country. There are no prisoners taken here. Tipp need to show they’re up to it.

Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn. It doesn’t get any tougher. Games like these define a season.

2-9 that day.

Aishling Moloney inspired her county to a shock win over the Rebels in their back garden, scoring 2-9 out of their 3-13 total. It was a watershed win for Tipperary, a night when they proved to themselves and to others that they’re as good as the best of them.

Belief was coursing through them now.

Moloney dragged her county along with her that night, and she did it scoring the type of goal so unique and so individual that it could be named the ‘Aishling Moloney.’

March 2019.

Tipp are still ripping it along in the league, mixing it with the best of them and looking every bit as good as the rest of them. Aishling Moloney is one of the stars of Division One and her score against Waterford in Semple Stadium right from the throw-in was one of the scores of the year.

Championship season

A step down for Tipperary. They were relegated to intermediate the season before and the aim is to get straight back up. They begin with a bang and they don’t stop.

Aishling Moloney is just too good for this.

In the first round against Limerick, she scored a whopping 4-13 (4-9 from play) against Limerick. In the Munster final, she’d land 0-14 of Tipp’s 0-20 total against Clare.

Unheard of stuff.

The All-Ireland series rolls around.

  • 2-2 in the first round against Meath
  • 2-11 against Longford
  • 1-8 in the quarter final against Clare.

She’s player of the match in the semi against Sligo.

“If she doesn’t get an All-Star, we’d be very disappointed,” said Liam Shinnick, Moloney’s former Cahir GAA club coach.

Shinnick said those words before Moloney went out and hit 0-8 (0-7 from play) in the All-Ireland final in woeful weather, winning player of the match again.

The Ladies football All-Stars took place last night and as you would expect, the Cahir club woman was named the intermediate player of the year.

By the time the team of the year rolled around – which encompasses senior, inter and junior grades – Moloney was left out, and you’d have to ask yourself how.

The phenomenal Geraldine McLaughlin of Donegal can also count herself unlucky to miss out, though Moloney’s omission takes precedence.

Who would she replace? Take your pick.

Elsewhere, the phenomenal Sinead Goldrick won her seventh All-Star in the last eight years.

While Siobhan McGrath won the senior ladies player of the year gong.