welcome back now it was a fabulous weekend for the royal county the meathe
lady successfully defended their all ireland championship on sunday by
beating kerry crow park and we're delighted to be joined by two members of
the team monica mcgurk and meghan tein along with the brendan martin cub ladies
good morning congratulations thank you very much how are you doing
yeah it's been a whirlwind couple of days so it has
who on the team said yeah um you know monica and megan are doing it because
i'm assuming that there's been no beds
i actually got the call there yesterday and then i was roped into getting
another player so i was like get megan there quick stuff
like yeah i'm gonna i don't have to work all week i don't want to be going in
there i know we're delighted to be here so
it's great how's it been since sunday then the celebrations and the i suppose
well there's there hasn't been any coming down i presume
no we're still going strong so yeah so yeah it's been absolutely fantastic and
the crowds and the support we've had over the last couple of days in the last
two weeks leading up to it's just been absolutely fantastic so um yeah i know
it's been brilliant because it's really interesting you were just saying like
megan you didn't have the brendan martin cup last year because of covert
restrictions and then you didn't have the big homecoming so
is it is it like you're experiencing it in a
different way this year being all ireland champions again definitely i
think it's like it's a that bit more we're getting more out of it this year i
think and we didn't get to bring the cup back from crow park last year so it was
definitely nice to bring it back to trim there on sunday night when the big
crowds were there because last year we had nothing to kind of show them
you're like can someone make a paper brenden
i actually think someone did it so having the crowds because last year
was this i suppose monica was thought of as this
unexpected victory over dublin and dublin who had run so many times and
then next thing it was like me they've come out of nowhere yeah like it was a
huge story and a huge achievement yeah i suppose last year you know we were just
taking every game as i came and there was no pressure going into any game you
know and i suppose we were just enjoying the lead up to it and we knew we when we
were going in against dublin we had nothing to lose and we just wanted to
put in our best performance and thankfully we did and looking back on it
now we still think to this day it's probably one of the best performances
we've ever put in against any team so um and yeah look obviously like megan was
saying there there was a few covert restrictions back then but even to get
the likes of the 47 000 people there last sunday was absolutely fantastic and
two teams that normally aren't in an all ireland final to to rock up 47 000
people is absolutely fantastic and it's a credit to the tlgs lgfa and all the
promoters that um have done everything for us absolutely uh megan
on the game itself there was there was a lot of focus on kerry uh in the lead up
to it that uh they were everyone was watching them expect them to do well and
given that they'd waited so long even though you won last year do you feel
like maybe he sort of snuck in or flew in under the radar for the win again
yeah i definitely think we probably kind of look like underdogs again to be
honest monica's probably agree like we probably haven't had our best year and
game by game like i think people were surprised we were continuing to win
even like we only went in by a point or so but um you know definitely i think we
definitely thought kerry kind of we're probably there's more hype in their camp
than than we were getting but we we liked the
underdog tag so uh yeah we were happy we were happy enough we knew what we had to
do so gives you a bit of a regular room or a bit of comfort yeah you can operate
what's your confidence in yourself but how did it sit in camp being like
were the all ireland champions and people are kind of
in the lead up to this you know when the league and people were kind of
discounting ye monika like i felt it was a bit weird yeah look in the the two
weeks leading up to the the all-iron final we were just focusing on ourselves
we were trying to stay away from all that kind of you know that negativity or
whatever they'd like to call it we just were focused on our game plans and what
we were going to bring towards kerry because look we knew we hadn't played
kerry since uh a year ago in the division two league finals so we knew
that it was going to be a massive battle so i suppose we kind of just wanted to
you know put everything that was being said to one side and we just knew we had
to focus on ourselves and put into performance and thankfully we did how
did you prepare yourself making before the game and you said you weren't paying
attention to social media to coverage in general can keep the head down yeah no
definitely like i think as a team we're quite good at that anyways like we we
put it in and training and the our management team are brilliant at
keeping us at a level that we don't go over overthinking things and and you
know i think in genuinely i just think the people
involved they're just yeah like we're positive thinkers and yeah we didn't let
any of that creep into our games so we just kept it as normal because it's been
growing for like what's been happening in me has been growing in a while like
monica when you were i think it was back in 2018 when you were still playing
soccer and kind of focused on that and then eamon murray heard that you were
kind of stepping away from soccer and he was on the phone straight away going
just give me a couple of weeks we'll see how it goes and next thing
you've won two all irelands yeah like you were always building towards
something oh yeah absolutely and it's a credit to obviously aim and getting all
the players in but obviously the background team we've got it you know a
huge uh background team and in all our coaches and managers and it's an
absolute credit to all them you know they've put in a huge amount of work
they've been in since 2017 and obviously only come in 2018 and they're after
giving everything to me ladies for the last five years and ultimately if it
wasn't for them we wouldn't be where we are today and we we just want to thank
them very much for everything that they've done because obviously you know
a few coaches are stepping away this year and they'd be sadly missed and you
know we just want to say thanks very much to them and uh they will be greatly
missed like yeah and more prior to them um incredible numbers in croak park at
the weekend and you mentioned it yourself uh and there's such a focus as
well on the women's football team yeah the euros highest ever attendance
fantastic and such a focus and such support been
shown for women's sport is the winter but is it not sorted now that's that's
it don't don't does it it's just sports now it's not just
women's sports sports
you know you're like you're getting getting
people behind you you know it's kind of important megan yeah like it is it's
getting better and like we were just actually saying earlier like oh the last
two years that we've been involved has probably been one of the most successful
probably numbers for for the game absolutely yeah and like we're blessed
to be part of that because a few years ago it wasn't like that and there were
still great teams playing like it is getting better but as we said as well
there probably is a small bit of room for it for it to
keep growing you know so i love that we got involved we started winning
absolutely
[Laughter]
it there must be such like in the county i know some of the management are
stepping away but the belief within ye and then bringing people on like looking
at that like that's like you know you've got you've got plans oh yeah absolutely
and i suppose all you have to do is look at the homecoming that we had there
monday evening we had over five thousand people in the fair green and in navin
which has never happened for a mid ladies football game you know and i
suppose it's down to um obviously all the hard work of the girls and promoting
the sport and i suppose for the women's football it's very family orientated to
see all the kids and everything out and you walk down the street now and every
second child you see he has a new jersey on which is it was it's just quite nice
you know so yeah it is it's pretty special so it is so celebrate you're in
the midst of the celebration of the moment making yes have you been to bed
on sunday uh yes yeah i think like this might be the reason me and monica are on
there you're the two that went to bed
i don't know if they got to bed last night
everything how much of a break or arrest you get
now before you well we're actually we're playing club
championship next week so next week yeah first rounds on the tent isn't it yeah
the 10th who are you playing i have we're playing against uh saint
dalton's in the first round and we're playing manali so
but it is you're having it like let's be honest has there been drinking out of
yeah yeah give it a wipe down
a little bit
can i put you know the way normally babies have to go into has the baby been
in there actually has been one or two babies in yeah there has yeah very
important yeah it's great i know it's great we'll get an extra large
cappuccino in there for the for the we'll do that we might even try it but
we'll try to fit you in it good luck
get me out of it congratulations thank you so much we
know monica has to go to work now for a few hours
we run out tonight yes yeah i'll be going back out yeah i'm finishing off
the weekend absolutely second time you've been out
tonight i am going out tonight all right hold on ladies have a great time tonight
it's been a pleasure having you thank you for bringing brenda martin is that
we really appreciate it congratulations