A first Senior League title in 25 years, as well as an appearance in the Senior Championship Final, signalled a great year for Armagh Harps, who lost just two games all year across league and championship.
Pulling the strings from centre half forward all season has been Aoife Lennon who lead from the very front each and every game for the Harps and she often added to her play making ability by displaying her eye for a score. Lennon struck the Harps only goal in the county final loss to Clann Eireann as well as chipping over a point.
Lennon collected the Division One Senior Player of the Year at the Armagh LGFA awards night last Saturday where she also received her All-Star award along with two of her Harps teammates, Paula Enright and Fionnuala McKenna. And although Lennon didn’t expect the award, she hopes to use it as motivation for the 2020 season.
“It’s an absolute honour, it’s obviously something that I didn’t expect but I’m just so privileged that I was able to represent my club and that other clubs had nominated me so I am really, really grateful for it and it means a lot to me. Hopefully I can drive me and use it as motivation and inspiration for next year.”
While the Harps may have only suffered two defeats all season, one of them came on the biggest day of the year. The clash of the two best team in the county say the Harps come up against a strong that held a seven point winning margin when the final whistle sounded, but it was a good learning curve for the young Harps side.
“We had an absolute brilliant year, winning the league was obviously massive but it’s the championship you go after and I think it was a learning curve for us. We did lose out to the better team but we’ll learn from it and I think we’ll come back fighting next year and bring a lot of what we learned this year on to next year.”
“I suppose, the better team won on the night. We did have a lot of young players, and I’m not putting it down to that but I think as a group we just have to sit down and reflect on it. We didn’t take our opportunities and on nights like that you have to take them. We are learning and we are a young team so that’s a massive positive for us so we will come back fighting for next year.”
While the goal will of course be the Championship in 2020, the Harps also have to deal with the pressure that comes with being league champions and the expectations that come along with being successful, but Lennon wants her side to keep building on a productive 2019 and eyes doing that next season.
“I think we’ve set the barrier, we’ve set the foundation for ourselves now and we only want to look forward and I think we’ve found a good foundation, we’re on a high and we can only keep building on from that. It’s looking like a great year ahead for us and we are going to work hard and hopefully bring the success back again.”
