'It's heartbreaking' - Kilkenny's All-Ireland dreams ended despite brave effort

Kilkenny's hopes of qualifying for the final of the All-Ireland Under-23 Camogie Championship came to an end on Saturday afternoon, despite a valiant effort away to Galway in Kenny Park in Athenry.

The game proved to be tight for much of the contest, but a late first half penalty gave the home outfit a much needed lift and 1-7 to 0-8 lead at half-time.

However, 12 minutes into the new half, St Brigid's Lauren Ronan broke past the Galway defence to net and draw the teams level (1-10 apiece).

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A final place was all to play for heading into stoppage time with the Westerners leading by the smallest of margins and despite having the chances to draw the contest level, it wasn't to be for Emma Kavanagh's team.

Full match report in this week's Kilkenny People

Kilkenny manager, Emma Kavanagh reaction:  "I couldn't be prouder now of every single one of them," she said after the match.

"It's heartbreaking now to be honest with you, it's an awful way to lose. There'll be girls there looking back and wondering should they have and could they have done more but honestly what we're telling them now is that there's no need to be doing that because they couldn't have done any more for us.

"Every single one of them that entered the field, all 19 of them and the girls sitting on the sideline gave absolutely 100% all year and we genuinely couldn't be more proud of them," Kavanagh added.

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"We're obviously two very closely matched teams. A draw last week, one point in it today.

"We came up here and we believed we could do it and it's a credit to the girls that they didn't fear coming to Kenny Park at all. It didn't matter whether they were in Kenny Park or Nowlan Park or Croke Park, they were just going to come here and give it 100% and work and that's what they did," Kavanagh added.

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