Who is Waterford's Woman Sports Star for June.

The months are flying bye this year.

We are already in July so its time for someone to be picked out as the unofficial Waterford Sports Woman of the Month.

At the end of May and in early June when I was looking at some of the events coming up for the month ahead, I was thinking to myself to pick a winner for June could be a little easier than for the previous five months as there appeared to be less happening.

How wrong I was.

While the amount of sport that took place last month might have been a little down on previous months due to the Junior and Leaving Cert exams nonetheless there were still some outstanding performances.

Athletics, Soccer, Camogie and Ladies Football are the sports in for a mention this month.

I have no doubt there was much more sports happening in June, but for some reason, they did not get much media attention for them to be picked up on.

As many womens sports do not get the coverage they deserve its hard them to pick up on them and for them to get a mention here and elsewhere.

We cannot blame the local papers for this. Neither can we blame local radio. If they were not informed of events then they can report what is happening.

The importance of every club and board involved in women’s sports appointing an active PRO cannot be cannot be called for enough.

If a person is involved in a none team sport and they don’t like to talk up their own achievements, then a parent, sibling, partner or coach can do it for them and let everyone know what is happening.

If you are involved in women’s sports and want some more coverage, contact me (keanethomas@eircom.net) and I will upload the details on this site, where unlike in the papers, or on the radio there is no restriction on the amounts of words that can be used because of space available or on radio where time available might be limited. And most of all its free to have the information uploaded.

So who is the person that impressed most in June.

Kelly Proper competed at a meet in Geneva in Switzerland. The Ferrybank A.C. athlete competed in the 200m event and won in a time of 23.26 seconds.

The World Championships take place in Beijing later this year and next year the Olympics take place at Rio in Brazil. The Ferrybank athlete no doubt will want to compete in both but first will have to achieve the qualifying time of 23.20 seconds, so Kelly is not far off that mark.

The Munster under 14 to 19 Athletic Championships took place recently in Waterford at the RSC. For Waterford athletes there was plenty of medals won at the championships. I could name many of them here but am going to refrain from doing so for fear of omitting one or two.

Dungarvan United this past month won the Under 16 Girls Cup beating Tramore in the final at Ferrybank on penalties.

Throughout the season the Old Boro young ladies had some excellent players in their squad including the likes of Katie Duggan-Sullivan, Emma Gildea, Aisling Baumann, Kaeisha Tobin, Atlanta Flynn-Raher, Emily O’Mahony and Chloe Fennell the scorer of the winning penalty in the cup final.

In Camogie De La Salle travelled north to take part in Feile na nGael recently and reached the Division two semi finals.

Gaultier competed in a Division One Regional Féile at Thurles where they reached and won the final beating Kilkenny side Thomastown.

This was a remarkable achievement as it follows on from the Division two finals won in 2013 and 2014 and some of the players involved recently would have been involved in all three years. Hopefully more is to come on what the Barony girls achieved soon.

In Féile Péil Gaultier and Ballysaggart represented the county recently.

Ballysaggart reached the Division five semi finals and the young ladies from the Barony reached the division three final but lost out on the day. Playing extra time in the semi final earlier in the day while not an excuse would not have been a help to them in trying to achieve a unique Féile Camogie and Ladies Football double.

All of the above would have been worthy winners this month, but alas its not to be for them this month.

So who is the winner this month?

Well here is a clue. The winner this month is a Lady Footballer, the second time since January that the winner is from the sport.

Aileen Wall, a previous winner is in with a shout again this month. She was outstanding for Ballymacarbry as they won the Munster Senior 7s competition at Mallow recently beating Kilmihil from Clare in the final scoring FOUR goals.

Katie Hannon also gets a mention. The Ballyduff Upper Club member and goalkeeper with the Waterford intermediate ladies team has had some impressive performances with Waterford of late.

The full back line of Nora Dunphy, Michelle McGrath and Linda Wall all were very impressive against Clare recently in the Munster Championship. The latter two were also impressive in the win over Tipperary a week earlier.

Karen McGrath is also very impressive of late playing in the middle of the field for Waterford. Caoimhe McGrath impressed a lot for Waterford in their win over Clare recently. Maria Delahunty has also impressed a lot this year and has kicked some great scores. Hannah Landers is also impressing of late as is Mary Foley who seems to have found a new lease of life since moving to the forwards this year.

Again all would be worthy winners, but you guessed it. All have missed out this month.

So who is the winner?

Well it was very hard to look past Sinead Ryan.

Against Tipperary in the Munster Intermediate Championship, Sinead was outstanding and scored 3-6. A week later she put 0-4 against Clare and could have registered more if Waterford had to win the game to secure a Munster Final spot.

Waterford down the years have had some good players. Áine Wall was one of the best. Sinead has the potential to be as good if not better.

Waterford next week will attempt to win a seventh Munster Intermediate Final in a row. An adult All-Ireland has not been won since 2000.

In between Waterford have gone close to winning an All-Ireland but on the day always lacked that little something.

A forward that has an eye for the posts like Sinead could be that ingredient. She is in fine form of late, hopefully she will keep her form up until the end of September and that a first adult All-Ireland Final in 15 years will be recorded with Sinead playing an important roll.