Donegal ladies back to winning ways with gritty win over Mayo in Swinford

Donegal got their promotion push back on track with a narrow away win over Mayo at Swinford Amenity Park on Sunday afternoon. 

Conditions on the day were dismal to say the least, with wind and rain present throughout, making conducive football never a likely feature. 

Mayo scored five of their final tally of eight points in the opening twelve minutes, but really struggled to break Donegal down for the remaining three quarters of the game. 

McHale Rovers Sinead Walsh was the star of the show early on as the full-forward struck over a two-pointer from play and quickly followed that up with a single from a free before the very impressive 

Tara Needham and Sinead Cafferky added one each. Susanne White and Jodie McFadden would kick one free each for Donegal, either side of an Ava Caulfield effort from play to leave the score at 0-5 to 0-3 in favour of Mayo with just 13 minutes having elapsed. 

Amazingly, that would remain the score at the interval as scoring chances became few and far between, although Donegal would have an excellent goal chance late on but was excellently blocked by Ballindine native Eilis Ronayne, who slid in out of nowhere to somehow keep Tara Hegarty’s effort out. 

It was a frustrating second half as much as it was in the first half for Mayo as Donegal kicked two two-pointers in the opening ten minutes after the resumption. 

Susanne White struck over from a placed ball effort, and corner forward Ciara McGarvey did likewise from play that totally swung the scoreboard around, and now the visitors led 0-7 to 0-5, but there was plenty of time remaining. 

Sinead Walsh did respond with a free for Mayo to half the gap, ending a combined period of 31 minutes without Mayo raising a flag, but this moment of relief was short-lived as Jodie McFadden kicked two frees at the other end to go three clear with the finish line in sight. 

Sinead Walsh did score two more frees to take Mayo to within a point, but time was running out and they needed something special to snatch an equaliser. 

Mayo might have come up short, but you couldn’t question their attitude in the closing stages as they mounted huge pressure on the Donegal goalmouth and Tara Needham took a shot from a tight angle, went across the face of the goal, was grabbed by a Mayo player, but was taken out over the line for a Donegal goal kick. 

Mayo still rallied and it was Westport’s Aoife Staunton who took a last-gasp shot to draw level, but it flew just wide of the post and it was not to be.

Donegal: Claire Friel; Niamh Carr, Evelyn McGinley, Sophie McFeely; Tara. Hegarty, Feena. McManamon, Ava Caulfield (0-1); Mia Bennett, Roisin Rodgers; Blaithnaid McLoughlin, Katie Dowds, Niamh Boyle; Susanne White (0-3, 1tpf), Jodie. McFadden (0-3, 3f), Ciara McGarvey (0-2, 1tp).

Subs used: Shauna McFadden for Caulfield (56).

Mayo: Laura Brennan; Eilis Ronayne, Danielle Caldwell, Lucy Wallace; Ella Brennan, Ciara Needham, Lynda Hanley; Aoife Geraghty, Fiona McHale; Aoife Kennedy, Aoife Staunton, Tara Needham (0-1); Sinead Cafferky (0-1), Sinead Walsh (0-6, 1tp, 4f), Lisa Cafferky.

Subs used: Saoirse Delaney for Kennedy (HT), Hannah Reape for Hanley (46-inj), Suzanne Tuohy for L. Cafferky (46).