Ladies Gaelic Football

SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP 6 | SUMMER 2020 | www.ladiesgaelic.ie By Jackie Cahill TYRONE skipper Neamh Woods has set the Red Hands a target of reaching the 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Senior Football Championship semi-finals. Gerry Moane's outfit have been pitted with Ulster rivals Armagh, and Connacht representative Mayo, in the group stages of the competition. Tyrone will quietly fancy their chances, as they defeated Armagh by two points in Division 2 of the Lidl National League GROUP 4: MAYO, ARMAGH, TYRONE Mayo made excellent progress in 2019, recovering from a Connacht Final replay loss to Galway to make it to Croke Park for the TG4 All-Ireland semi-finals. Peter Leahy's team ran into Galway again in the last four – and lost out to a stunning late effort from Roisin Leonard, as the Galway forward lofted over a free from the ground. Mayo will launch their 2020 Championship assault from Group 4 – and they have two Ulster opponents in the mix. Tyrone and Armagh were both operating in Division 2 of the Lidl National League this year, while Mayo continued to hold their own in the top flight. On paper, Mayo will start as favourites to advance but there's no game in this Group where you could call the end result with a massive degree of certainty. When Tyrone met Mayo in the group phase last season, just three points separated the sides in a thrilling Omagh encounter, Mayo coming out on top by 3-14 to 3-11. In 2019, Armagh had a fine Ulster semi-final victory over Monaghan but came up short against Donegal in the provincial decider. In the All-Ireland series, Armagh lost to Cavan in one of the games of the year by just a point and with Cork also in the group, it appeared that the chance of progress had gone for the Orchard County. And yet, when the chips were down, Armagh stunned the Leesiders by 4-9 to 3-11, to set up an All-Ireland quarter-final against Mayo. It was the Westerners who won out in Longford, 2-12 to 1-12, and so there's plenty of history between the three teams who will compete in this group. Looking at the 2019 form-line, the margins are wafer thin here, and while Mayo will be fancied to make it through to the last four of the All-Ireland series, they'll have to work hard to book their slot. in impressive fashion, before they tail off somewhat. It's a pattern that Maxi Curran and his backroom team will have looked at in some detail. Dublin will be the favourites to emerge from Group 3, however, and meet the Group 4 table-toppers in the semi-finals. Woods sets the bar for Tyrone this year prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, and they lost out by just four points to Mayo in the group stages of last year's championship, in a high-scoring affair. Group 4 looks wide open and all three teams in there will believe they can top the group and book a semi-final slot. Tyrone came up against an in-form Cork and suffered a heavy quarter-final loss in 2019, and Drumragh Sarsfields dynamo Woods now wants the 2018 Intermediate champions to take another significant step in the senior ranks. "You always want to go one better than what went before," she told the LGFA's Jackie Cahill. "Last year, we got to an All-Ireland quarter-final – obviously this year there aren't quarter-finals and we have a very competitive group with Armagh and Mayo. "Success for me would be reaching a semi-final at least, it's certainly within our capability, with the strength in depth that we have in our squad. "But having said that, the other two teams (in the group) will say the same and everybody's in with a real chance of qualifying from that group. "But if we're looking at success and how we're measuring success, I would say that an All-Ireland semi-final is certainly the benchmark."

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