LGFA MATCH PROGRAMME PIECE: DENISE MASTERSON (DUBLIN)
By Daire Walsh
Right from the word go, Denise Masterson had a sense that the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final of 2010 was going to be a special one for Dublin.
Following a one-point defeat to Cork in the previous year’s decider – a late flourish edging the Leesiders over the line on a score of 1-9 to 0-11 – the Jackies returned to the LGFA’s Croke Park showpiece courtesy of knockout round wins against Clare and Laois.
After holding the same role 12 months earlier, Masterson (a late bloomer who only took up the sport of ladies football when she was 23) became the first winning captain from her county in a Brendan Martin Cup final thanks to an emphatic success over Tyrone.
“For me, I remember the throw-up because I was involved with that. The detail the lads had gone into, they’d obviously been watching the Tyrone girls and they were saying ‘we’ll go after the throw-up, try and get a score straight from it’. We won it and we got a score from it,” Masterson remembers.
“I kind of felt things may go according to plan that day. That moment for me in the match at the start of it was kind of positive.”
Aside from the fact Tyrone dethroned a Cork side that had secured the previous five All-Ireland senior titles, a 2-12 to 1-9 defeat at the hands of the Ulster side in a Brendan Martin Cup quarter-final two years earlier ensured there was a level of apprehension amongst the Dublin camp in advance of their meeting in GAA HQ on September 26, 2010.
While all of 16 points (3-16 to 0-9) separated the sides in the end, Masterson admitted that past experience meant she couldn’t relax until the final whistle was blown.
“We were apprehensive and we certainly didn’t think it would be the margin that it was. I know I was chasing a sideline at one stage and there wasn’t that long left.
“Kathleen Colreavy [Dublin LGFA assistant secretary and player liaison officer] was saying to me ‘you know we have it’ and I was like ‘Kathleen, don’t be putting the mockers on us now!’
“We could have been 12 points up at that stage, five minutes to go. After some of our escapades against Cork, I didn’t want to leave it until the final whistle.”
Despite not adding another All-Ireland title to her list of honours – she was on a Dublin side that lost out agonisingly to Cork in the much-discussed 2014 final – Masterson was thrilled to see several of her colleagues from 2010 going on to achieve great things in the sky blue jersey.
Of the 20 players that featured against Tyrone that day, Rachel Ruddy, Siobhan McGrath, Lyndsey Davey, Sinead Aherne, Noelle Healy and Niamh McEvoy all went on to play massive parts in the Jackies’ impressive march to four consecutive All-Ireland SFC triumphs from 2017 to 2020.
Ruddy and McGrath both missed out on final wins for different reasons, but their contributions during this period were nonetheless crucial for Mick Bohan’s all-conquering outfit.
“Even some of those girls that went on to win four-in-a-row, they probably would have been part of the team in 2004 as well. The likes of Lyndsey Davey, Siobhan McGrath, Sinead Aherne,” Masterson added, referencing Dublin’s All-Ireland final defeat to Galway in 2004.
“Delighted for the girls then obviously kicking on and they did get to beat Cork in a final as well. I think that 2009 final and 2014 were hard to swallow, and I’m sure it was amazing for them to be out on the pitch for a win against Cork in an All-Ireland final.”