Quinn hails ‘phenomenal’ work rate of Moate CS players

Moate Community School manager Fidelma Quinn was naturally very happy with her team’s performance in last week's Leinster Junior 'A' final victory over Maynooth Education Campus.

“It was a tight affair in the first half. We set up a little defensively because we felt if we could stay in the game for the first 15 minutes, we could then push on from there. That was probably our game plan,” said the Moate CS teacher, who is joined in the management by Amy Hughes and Alison Hughes.

“We were happy enough at half-time, six points up. But we felt we missed a lot, we felt maybe we needed to be less negative and a bit more on the attack,” said Quinn after the final in Kinnegad.

“The girls listened to what the second half game plan was going to be. We knew we still had to dig deep, six points was nothing. We saw what they could do in the senior final.

‘“We got critical goals and goals win games. The girls' work rate both on and off the ball was phenomenal. If we had not won, we would feel very hard done by,” the Ballygar native continued.

Overall, it was an excellent day's work done for Quinn and her Moate CS team and now they are preparing for the All-Ireland series.

“I think we play the winners in Ulster, we just wanted to focus on today and winning Leinster. It’s always very difficult to win Leinster.

“We will look at the semi-final next week and talk about that then. We played Loreto College, Cavan in a friendly after Christmas in preparation for the Leinster final and we were joking that we could meet in the All-Ireland semi final,” Quinn added.

*See this week's Westmeath Independent for match report and more photos.