ARDARA manager Martin Bennett feels that they go into the Intermediate final as underdogs having been beaten by their Dungloe counterparts twice already this year.
The Pearse Memorial Park side have been towards the upper end of the Intermediate ranks in recent years, making the final two years ago and the semi-final last year, but Bennett admits it came as a bit of a surprise reaching the decider this year.
“We got to this final kind of not expecting it, we have girls who have come back after not playing last year and it’s good because you need the older girls for experience.
“We’ll give it a rattle, Dungloe are going very well and they have been the last couple of years so it’ll be a big challenge.
“They beat us by six or seven in the league and they gave us a good trouncing in the championship so we know we have a big hill to climb to compete with them.
“We’ll hope to have taken learnings from that game. But they’re very fit and that bit more seasoned than us, we’ll try to do some things a bit different but it’ll be a big challenge to us there.”
It’s a first year in charge for Bennett, who took over from Joe McLaughlin, and has Don Early, Fergal Heena, Thomas and Catherine Boyle helping out.
Niamh Boyle is the captain and the aforementioned experience comes in the form of Molly Gallagher and Watters sisters Aoife and Grace, as well as Carol Breslin who has returned after having a child earlier this year.
But Bennett’s side is made up predominantly of their minor team, with plenty of quality in there.
Ríonach Doherty and Martin’s daughter Mia Bennett lined out for the Donegal minors this year, while Kayla McHugh, Caoimhe Gallagher and Reiltin Doherty played for the county Under 16s, so there is quality coming through at the underage level.
Reiltin Doherty is a doubt for the weekend, while Gallagher did her ACL in the summer so will definitely be missing. Bennett is also hopeful Caoimhe Brennan will be available but it is no certainty due to her studies in Liverpool.
“We have 15 minors in our panel and eight of them started at the weekend so it’s a very young team. They have had a couple of good minor years and they’re all coming through now.
“We were struggling, girls had emigrated or work has taken over and two years ago they were in the Intermediate final and there were just four minors in the side so there’s a lot of change.
“To be in the final with this many minors is great, it might be a year or two too early but they got there, we had a few tight battles with Fanad, we beat them by one point in the championship group then by two at the weekend.”
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