World Footy News

Day 7 of the AFL 2024 Transatlantic Cup in Toronto featured two women’s semi-finals that would see victors as champions of their continent, and more importantly put them into Sunday’s Grand Final. 

The Irish Banshees were up against their neighbours from across the Irish Sea, the Great Britain Swans.   The Swans arrived at the semi-final undefeated in their three round matches, while the Banshees had suffered one loss to Canada’s Northern Lights in Round 2.

Having never beaten the reigning Euro Championships and International Cup title holders the Swans had plenty of motivation and a fair degree of confidence that they could make history.  But the Banshees are proven winners, and quickly added two goals in the first quarter to O’Shea and Byrne.  The Swans were able to get the ball in some chains as far as their half forward line, but Irelands well organised defenders were able to link up and clear the ball time and again.   This was largely lead by Marie Keating who set up behind the ball and did the organising.

 The Swans were missing both Jane Meadows, injured before the tournament and Eleasha Hyner who is out after concussion in the previous match and clearly missed both these key forwards that might have assisted with their scoring ability.

The second term the Swans managed to break even with Condon for the Banshees and Franklin  for the Swans kicking one each.  But in the third term Ireland again advanced their lead with goals to Walsh and Kendrick while ‘Mad Dog’ Murdoch added one goal for the Swans as they seemed to have swung the momentum their way late in the quarter.

But in the final term the Banshees put the foot down and piled on four goals to none, including three to Shannon Stevenson who now leads the goalkicking with 12 goals. The 40 point win an emphatic way to head into Sunday’s grand final.

Athene “Nene” McInerney was best for the Swans, moving to centre half forward for today’s match and for the Banshees skipper Amanda Brosnan was a standout around the ground.

The other semi-finalists were the host nation Canada Northern Lights team and the USA Freedom.  The Northern Lights have a long running winning record streak against the USA, and earlier this week knocked off tournament favourites Ireland so they went into today’s game as favourites.

This game was truly an arm wrestle from start to finish by two teams that know each other well.   The US dominated with the ball in their forward half, and had Dani Marshall roaming across half back zoning off and trying to make sure nothing got through.  The deadlock was broken in the first quarter by veteran Canadian Aimee Legualt who kicked the first goal of the match and see her team lead by that margin at quarter time.   On that occasion Marshall had been drawn to the centre of the ground, before the ball shot over her to the Canadian 50.

The second term saw just one point kicked by the Freedom as the arm wrestle continued.  The third quarter Dunn added a goal for Canada and Johnson-Chambers kicked what would be the only US goal for the match.  Aimee Legault left the ground with an ankle injury, and this seemed to stem the ability for Canada to get the ball forward.  The US team were wasteful in front of goal with a number of hooked kicks that resulted in four behinds for the quarter. As a result at three quarter time the Northern Lights held a slender one point lead.

The final term again was dominated by the US Freedom with the ball in their front half, but unable to goal, before they finally levelled the scores with a nine minutes to go when Kahr’s kick was touched on the line.  And then with less than a minute on the clock, Turse received a free kick in the forward pocket, which fell short but was punched through by a teammate for a behind.  Giving the Freedom a one-point victory and putting them in an international tournament grand final for the first time with the Irish Banshees awaiting them.    Better players for the US were Blecher and Turse, while for Canada Gaillard and Brancati were major contributors.

The first match of the day was a rematch of Colombia and France, this time the French scored their first goal of the tournament with captain Clotilde Decaux kicking the Gauloises first goal in and 18 a side international tournament.  Echeverry and Diaz scored goals for the Colombians in the match that they won by 10 points.  Best on ground was Colombia’s Stefania Galteros.

Tomorrow will see the men’s semifinal matches between the USA Revolution and Canada Northwind, and the Irish Warriors will be playing the Great Britain Bulldogs.