Annie Crozier back to continue great Derry family tradition

It might be almost eight years since she donned the colours of her native Derry in an All-Ireland final at Croke Park, but Annie Crozier remains hopeful of once again featuring on the biggest day in the women's football calendar.

Back on September 2017, Crozier scored a point from right corner-forward as the Oak Leaf County drew with provincial rivals Fermanagh in a junior football decider at GAA HQ.

The Ballymaguigan star also raised a white flag when Derry lost out to the Erne women in a replayed encounter held at St Tiernach’s Park, Clones a fortnight later and this is to date the most recent appearance by the county in an adult championship decider.

While there are a lot of new faces to the panel this year, captain Crozier is optimistic they can develop the right blend that is needed to seriously challenge for the West County Hotel Cup later this year.

"Obviously we’re using national league as that building process and getting to know each other as a team," she said.

"It (making the junior final in 2017) just shows what is possible, whenever you get a good squad of girls together and you’re all working towards one target.

"You see what Fermanagh have done since 2017. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be pushing on to achieve the same."

Although he had stepped away from the set-up by the time they made it to the All-Ireland junior final, Derry had begun the 2017 season with Crozier’s father Paul in charge of the team.

He would later return to the managerial post for the start of the following year – by which point Annie had opted to spend a gap year in Australia.

Paul Crozier was far from being the first member of the St Trea’s Ballymaguigan club to manage Derry at inter-county level as the late duo of Jim McKeever and Eamonn