ALL STAR forward Sinead Aherne and her Jackies colleagues have heightened anticipation of a Dublin triumph at Croke Park this year after booking their place in the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies decider. And Aherne for one will be desperate to get her hands on a winner's medal after suffering heartache on three previous occasions. The St Sylvester's sharpshooter is a survivor from the 2003 and 2004 county panels who tasted defeat in successive finals, and it was third time unlucky 12 months ago when Cork defeated the Dubs by a single point to make it five AllIreland titles in a row.

' It's horrible to lose one final, let alone three,' Aherne acknowledged yesterday ( Monday) after scoring two of Dublin's points in their 1-8 to 0-9 semi-final victory over Laois at Dr Cullen Park last weekend.

' So we're glad to be back with another chance and we have the incentive to go out and win it this time.

' And I think there's much more to come from this team. We've a lot to work on from the last game and we'll need to step up our performance, but at least we have four weeks to work on things in training.'

Dublin racked up 2-13 when they defeated Laois by 10 points in the Leinster final six weeks ago, and perhaps the stiffer test provided by the O'Moore County last Saturday will stand to the Jackies when they face Tyrone – conquerors of Cork earlier in the competition – or Kerry in the September 26th decider at Croke Park.

Laois led by 0-4 to 0-2 at half-time and deep into the second half it appeared that the tables would be turned from that provincial decider as they clung on to a single-point lead.

However, with seven minutes remaining up stepped Skerries Harps corner forward Lyndsey Davey to find the net and turn the game in Dublin's favour. The Jackies held that advantage all the way to the finish and denied Laois a first final appearance since 2001.

' We expected a much stiffer test from Laois this time because we knew they had improved from the Leinster final,' said Aherne.

' The last day we scored 2-13 against them, but things don't always work out like that. This time Laois played very defensively, things were very tight and at times we were struggling a bit.

' Three points down with 10 minutes to go is not ideal, but in the last two games we've been able to come up with the big scores when they were needed.

' It doesn't matter whether we play Tyrone or Kerry in the final. Either way it will be an interesting game. They've both done well and put together some big performances, and Tyrone beating Cork shows the strength they have.

' Even though Cork are out, it's difficult to say whether this is our best chance [ of an AllIreland], but we'll be giving it our best shot.'

As always, Fingal will be strongly represented on final day, with eight players from the area representing their county at Headquarters.

Niamh McEvoy jnr is the other St Sylvester's club player on the panel alongside Aherne, while Naomh Mearnóg will be represented by Denise Masterson, Cliodhna O'Connor and Karen Kennedy.

Fingallians' Amy McGuinness and Niamh Hurley, plus the aforementioned Davey ( Skerries Harps) complete the local connection. DUBLIN: C O'Connor; R Ruddy, A Cluxton, G Fay; S McGrath, S Furlong, C Barrett; D Masterson, N McEvoy snr; M Nevin, A McGuinness 0-3, L Peat; L Davey 1-1, S Aherne 0-2, E Kelly 0-1. Subs: N Healy for Nevin, B Finlay 0-1 for Kelly, N McEvoy jnr for McEvoy snr. LAOIS: C Dollard; G Dunne, L Muckian, A Quigley; A Taylor, P Fogarty, M McEvoy; A Casey, A O'Loughlin 0-2; T Lawlor 0-3, N Kirwan 0-1, Mary Kirwan; Martha Kirwan 0-2, G Weston, M Dunne. Subs: G O'Connor 0-1 for Dunne, A Kehoe for Weston, O Farrell for Casey, E McEvoy for Farrell.

- Marcus CAVAROLI