Goal-machine Fitzgerald still hungry for more
Mourneabbey footballer, Laura Fitzgerald, in attendance at a photocall at Croke Park ahead of the currentaccount.ie All-Ireland Ladies Club Football Finals.
By John Harrington
If Kilkerrin-Clonberne have done any video analysis to prepare for Saturday’s currentaccount.ie All-Ireland Ladies Club Football Final, then Laura Fitzgerald surely featured in most of it.
The Mourneabbey inside-forward is in red-hot form at the moment, scoring an incredible 10 goals in her last three championship matches.
Of course, Kilkerrin-Clonberne are already keenly aware of the threat that Fitzgerald poses.
She was Player of the Match when the teams met in the 2019 All-Ireland Final, scoring 1-3 from play including a dramatic winner in the dying seconds of the match.
The arithmetic is simple for Kilkerrin-Clonberne – if they can somehow limit Fitzgerald’s impact on Saturday’s match then their hopes of winning an All-Ireland title rise exponentially.
As for Fitzgerald herself, she rails against the idea that she’s the player this All-Ireland Final will hinge on one way or another.
The way she sees it, her goal-scoring exploits are reflective of the Mourneabbey team as a whole rather than her own prodigious individual talent.
“Ah no, I'm just very fortunate for the position I play in and the players I have around me,” she says.
“To be honest, I'm just one of 15 that's on the field at any given time.
“To be at the end of any move that the girls create from the backline all the way up, I'm in a very lucky position to be honest. If the opportunities keep coming I'm going to hopefully keep delivering.
“I have a job to do in the inside forward line that's predominantly to keep the scoreboard ticking so if the opportunities keep coming I'll hopefully keep delivering for my team-mates around me.
“Collectively we have worked on being that more clinical and ruthless as well which is what Shane (manager Shane Roynane) really pushes for. if the goal is on you just have to take it because it is probably the difference at the end of the game so it is something we have worked on collectively but when it comes to point scoring we strive for 65 to70% of shots taken (conversion rate) we need to be that effective in front of goal.”
Laura Fitzgerald of Mourneabbey in action against Elaine Doyle of St Peter's Dunboyne during the 2021 currentaccount.ie All-Ireland Ladies Senior Club Football Championship semi-final match between Mourneabbey and St Peter's Dunboyne at Clyda Rovers GAA, in Cork.
Fitzgerald’s talent was apparent from a young age.
In what’s surely a unique achievement, in the same year she won a Cork U-14 county title with Mourneabbey she also captained the Ballyclough boy’s U-14 team to a North Cork title.
She could no longer play with the Ballyclough boys after the U-14 grade, but she still credits that experience for a lot of her development as a footballer.
“I was actually the only girl on that team from under-8’s up,” she says. “We had a really great team with Ballyclough at that stage but it was a privilege to be the only girl and then be made captain is something that I definitely treasured for a couple of years.
“I supposed when I joined Mourneabbey then I was well able to play at under-14 level whereas sometimes with girls you might be late coming into the game at that stage whereas I had years under my belt and I was very lucky to have had played with the lads and built up my skill level over the years before I joined the girls so I was able to hold my own when I joined them.”
Fitzgerald has now won seven Cork senior champions, seven Munster titles, and two All-Ireland titles with Mourneabbey, but the success wasn’t instant.
“We weren't making county finals for a couple of years,” she says.
“The first year we made the county final was the first year we won it and that was 2014. So there were easily four or five years of hard work put in before that.
“We won a Senior 'B' Munster one of those years. The furthest we were getting was a county semi-final so we've come a long way since then which is a testament to the hard work of previous trainers we've had and previous panel members. The last few years have definitely made all that worth it.”
Laura Fitzgerald of Mourneabbey celebrates after scoring a point for her side during the 2019 All-Ireland Ladies Senior Club Championship Final match between Kilkerrin-Clonberne and Mourneabbey at LIT Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.
Despite all they’ve won, Fitzgerald says there’s still a “relentless amount of hunger” in this Mourneabbey panel because young players are continually emerging to challenge the more established for places in the team.
She knows they’ll need all of that hunger to come out on top this Saturday because the 2019 All-Ireland Final against Kilkerrin Clonberne was such a battle.
What’s her stand-out memory of the Galway side from that day?
"Their fitness levels,” she says. “They were a serious outfit, they had 15 very good players on the pitch at all times.
"I know Nicola [Ward] went off injured but you wouldn't have known with the replacement that came on. They were relentless and the fact that it went down to the last 20 or 30 seconds kind of shows that... the only thing only thing on our performance, I don't think we were 100% ourselves and we've reflected on that.
"We know we weren't at our very best that day but still fought to win. We're definitely going to have to bring our A game on Saturday or else it's going to be game over."
“It is going to be two good teams going full whack at each other. There is literally going to be no stone unturned left.
“We are going to have to leave it all out there because they are going to be a seriously tough side and they’re going to be absolutely gunning for us no doubt so we have to be at our best but I think we’ve prepared in such a way that we will be ready for a seriously tough battle.”
