Rattigan says the new rules are brilliant as club players now adapt to the faster game

Kildare's Aoife Rattigan celebrates scoring a point ©INPHO/James Crombie

By Daire Walsh

After playing a full season of inter-county football under the LGFA’s new playing rule enhancements, Aoife Rattigan is enjoying doing the same with her club Cappagh as they work their way through the highly-competitive Kildare intermediate football championship.

Having initially trialled them during the Lidl National Football League and the Higher Education colleges competitions, the LGFA fully approved 12 new rules for their games at a Special Congress in April of this year. Whereas six of these regulations mirror the changes brought into the men’s game – such as the two-point scoring arc, the ‘three up’ rule and the ‘solo and go’ – the rest were focused more so on the current rules of the LGFA.

Rattigan thoroughly enjoyed playing under these new rules for the Lilywhites and continued to embrace them by kicking no fewer than three two-pointers in Cappagh’s opening round intermediate group stage win at home to Confey on August 11. Although Cappagh as a team weren't as familiar with the rule enhancements as those who had been operating on the inter-county scene, Rattigan believes her club colleagues have quickly come to terms with the way the game is now being played.

“I loved playing the new rules all year with Kildare, but at the start it took us a while to get used to them. The same back with Cappagh, there was girls asking questions when we were playing a few challenge games. It was great that we had the experience there to share with the girls as well,” Rattigan acknowledged.

“Now everyone is kind of settled into them. The solo and go is probably the biggest one, seeing it in club football, and the three up. It seems to be working really well.

“When we’ve a young, fast team, the solo and go is always going to be probably the biggest one to take advantage of. The girls seem to be really getting them now and it’s great to see. I think it has improved the club championship in general so far.”

The Joe Mallon Motor Group Intermediate Football Championship has been a productive one to date for Cappagh, who followed up that victory against Confey with additional triumphs at the expense of Carbury and Raheens. This saw them finishing at the summit of Group B with a maximum tally of nine points, helping them to progress automatically to the semi-final stage of the competition on September 15.

While Rattigan and Cappagh have strong title ambitions for this year’s intermediate championship, their focus won’t be extending beyond a last-four meeting with the winners of a quarter-final showdown between Leixlip and neighbours Confey that takes place this coming Tuesday.

“You want to play the best teams in the county, but at the moment we’re just focused on either Leixlip or Confey and who comes out next week. We have a home semi-final, so it’s just something to look forward to. Of course everyone dreams of playing senior football in their county.

“We played Leixlip last year in a quarter-final and just got over the line. Then we played Confey this year and personally I wouldn’t see anything between them. I’m sure it will be a good game for a spectator anyway.”

The team captain when Kildare won the All-Ireland U14 ‘A’ football championship final in 2016, Rattigan was called into the Lilywhites senior squad just three years later – then under the stewardship of Daniel Moynihan, who guided his native Galway to the Brendan Martin Cup last month.

She established herself as a regular starter under Moynihan and his eventual successor Sean Finnegan, before also playing a pivotal role during the two seasons former Mayo footballer Diane O’Hora spent at the Lilies helm in 2023 and 2024.

Before earning top honours in a Lidl National Football League Division 2 final against Tyrone in the following year, Enfield-based school teacher Rattigan was part of a Kildare side that secured a treble success in the form of a Lidl NFL Division 3 title, a TG4 Leinster intermediate championship and a TG4 All-Ireland intermediate championship in 2023.

“It was a great two years there. Some great wins as a team and each big win just brought us closer and closer as a group. It progressed on into the next year then, winning that Division Two league. It was just a great group of girls we had there and there was such belief in that group,” Rattigan recalled.

“Everyone just wanted to get out of intermediate for years. There was players who had been involved and just to get over that line, it was something special. I think something we just all wanted, to get back up playing senior football. Where Kildare needs to be playing.”

Having squeezed past Laois in a relegation play-off to retain their TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship status in 2024, the past two years has seen Kildare push on a bit more at the highest level of the inter-county game.

After making it to an All-Ireland SFC quarter-final in 2025, the Lilies reached the same stage of this year’s championship. With Rattigan helping herself to four points (bringing her seasonal tally to 2-53), the Leinster outfit only lost by a margin of three to Armagh on July 4 at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds.

Reaching a Leinster senior final for the first time since 2009 also represented significant progress and despite suffering relegation from Division 1 of the Lidl NFL at the beginning of the season, Rattigan believes Kildare remain in a good position to drive forward in the years to come.

“To push on in the last two years to be really competing in senior just shows a lot of work has gone in behind the scenes there with all the girls and the management teams that have been there. That we are a team that wants to compete and are capable of competing up there,” Rattigan added.

“Even the Leinster final showed that as well. We were in it for 45, 50 minutes. It’s just that last 10 minutes and that’s probably what we need to look at next year. Being able to complete a full 60 minutes performance.”