Time for female sports to accentuate the positives and eliminate the negatives

That controversy is required for camogie to make the back pages frustrates Cork captain Aoife Murray.

Heading into her 14th All-Ireland senior final, it annoys the 35-year old that mention of camogie in a sports bulletin is, more often than not, tied to a dressing-room bust-up, boardroom ineptitude or a dual player conundrum.

She accepts coverage of the game has grown immeasurably since she joined the Cork set-up in 2002 but knows that “negative stories” is what has people talking about female Gaelic games.

“It is just a pity it is always negative. If we are let play the game, camogie will sell itself,” Murray insists.

The Cork goalkeeper, though not of her own making, has first-hand experience of the controversy which she finds so irritating.

Last autumn, this newspaper revealed one of the reasons behind the forced departure of the 2017 Galway senior camogie management was the county board’s disapproval of selector Niall Corcoran conducting training sessions with Murray and others in Dublin.

“It is normally negative news which sells camogie,” she continues.

“And I’ll tell you one thing, a lot of it isn’t our own doing.”

Although she did not read the recent Sports Chronicle piece penned by the woman she succeeded as Cork captain, Rena Buckley, Murray gives a knowing nod when passages are recited to her during our chat at the Rochestown Park Hotel.

Buckley, who retired earlier this year (Murray gave “consideration” to such but isn’t yet ready to find out who she is without camogie), expresses her annoyance at how women’s sport can be portrayed by the media.

She references Kilkenny’s Collette Dormer and Cork’s Hannah Looney pushing off one another when they should have been shaking hands during the 2016 All-Ireland camogie final pre-match formalities. The incident overshadowed the decider and no doubt many can still recall the handbags episode - which became a social media hit - but struggle to remember the result of the game.

It was the same story for that September’s ladies football decider. Carla Rowe’s first-half point, which was incorrectly flagged wide, dominated post-match discussion, not the fact that Cork had gone and done six in a row.

“Media coverage of female Gaelic games is making genuine strides but it seems like controversy is required to create more attention,” wrote 18-time All-Ireland medal winner Buckley.

“We are going in the right direction but I want to see the game itself given more attention than the subplots.”

In the past couple of months, Ladies Football has been again front and centre for the wrong reasons with the walkout of 12 players from the Mayo ladies football squad, the ejection of Carnacon from the Mayo championship and their subsequent reinstatement. Earlier this week the Mayo squad released a statement alleging the 12 players opted out because of a “failed coup”.

Then there was the old chestnut of dual players being presented with a fixtures schedule which had them playing two matches on the same day. Murray’s teammates Hannah Looney and Libby Coppinger were initially looking at having to choose one code over the other when their All-Ireland camogie and ladies football semi-finals were both fixed for Saturday, August 18. The LGFA eventually moved their game back a week.

During a summer where Gemma O’Connor and Murray moved within one hour of a ninth All-Ireland camogiemedal, where 17-time All-Ireland medal winning dual player Briege Corkery returned to action a few months after giving birth and where the Cork ladies footballers reached a 12th All-Ireland decider in 14 years, Murray laments that two “negative stories” garnered most press.

“The biggest issue in women’s sport is that girls are not participating in sport beyond 18. Yet here we are, with this negative media storm around two dual players when we should be saying, ‘what athletes, aren’t they great ambassadors for the sport’. The Camogie Association released their master plan in November, so did the LGFA even look at our fixtures because that is the camogie semi-finals weekend.

“It is just a pity that two negative things got the most publicity. It would frustrate you,” says the holder of eight All-Ireland medals.

“If we are left play the game, the game will sell itself. If the game is let flow, it will sell himself. Sometimes, though, we have to take what we get.”

“Maybe, we can’t complain until we get 30,000 on All-Ireland final day or 5,000 down in Páirc Uí Rinn for a camogie match.”

The Camogie Association are expecting a crowd of 20,000 for the third consecutive final meeting of Kilkenny and Cork. Last year’s attendance of 20,438 was the largest at a camogie final, excluding the four years where the decider was played on the same day as the U21 hurling final, since 2004.

The Fine Grain Property employee, who’s in her 17th season with Cork, is a regular at the ladies football finals. She and her friends, mind you, would normally leave it until quite late in the afternoon to get their tickets, but would typically end up in the middle of either the Hogan or Cusack Stand given demand would not be massive. Last year, though, was different, a record-breaking 46,286 through the turnstiles.

“We wound up somewhere in the Davin End. I was looking around and going, this is absolutely phenomenal.

“I’ve never played the game to have people watch me, but, at the same time, what are ladies football doing to get that many people in and what are we not doing.”

So, what does the Cloughduv native think?

“Lidl has come in and pumped millions into ladies football. I go to my local Lidl and all the tellers have their jerseys on. I do think Liberty Insurance are pulling up their socks and are getting better. The All-Star trip was the first big step.

“Locally, we have a lot to do. We played an All-Ireland championship game in Páirc Uí Rinn at 5pm this summer and because we didn’t have mini-games at half-time, there was virtually nobody there. I could spot each player’s parents.

“For the All-Ireland semi-final, we had girls playing at half-time. That brought 80 alone up from Cloughduv. Maybe, we need to make it more of a social occasion. There is nothing worse than running out onto the pitch and hearing diddly-eye music. Have stalls and bands outside, like the hurling. Make it more of a norm for people to go and support women’s matches.”