O’Driscoll performs a magical display of camogie

MOMENTS after yesterday’s All-Ireland camogie final at Croke Park, hat-trick Cork hero Fiona O’Driscoll is bounding along in front of the Rebel fans in the Hogan Stand, clenched triumphant fist aloft, saluting friends, family, the red-and-white hordes.

“I had been thinking of giving it up earlier this year”, she revealed, “but I’m glad I didn’t now.”

So were those same fans, because on the biggest day of the camogie calendar, the immensely-talented Fr. O’Neill’s veteran put on an exhibition. 3-2 to her credit at the finish, every score more crucial than the one before, and more spectacular. Her third goal, Cork’s fourth, and the one that really killed off this game, was the most incredible of all a magical catch of a dropping high ball, turn, and a shot off in the most confined space.

“We knew we were capable of putting up a performance like this, but you can’t be sure until you’ve actually done it. Tipp were obviously favourites, but we knew, they just couldn’t have the hunger we had, no way. We knew if we could stay with them for the first ten or fifteen minutes of the second half, our desire and fitness would pull us through. I’ve been lucky over the years, playing it a while now, but to wake up on Monday morning with that brilliant feeling the last time we were here, it wasn’t so good. Looking forward now to going back to Cork tomorrow evening”. After such a show, they will surely get a huge welcome.

Another veteran collecting her sixth senior All-Ireland was Linda Mellerick but this one, according to the blonde bombshell from the Glen, is the sweetest of all. “We needed this so, so badly. I know this is a cliche, but I just can’t believe we’ve won it, and that we’ve won it by three clear goals - it won’t sink in for a while. But I did say to Una O’Donoghue last Tuesday night when we were wrapping up training, we’re three goals a better team than them if we can click, and in the second half, we really clicked. Every time you win one, it’s a fantastic feeling, but this is the sweetest of them all.”

Six senior titles each for O’Driscoll and Mellerick, first success in five All-Ireland finals for team captain Una O’Donoghue, having lost one at every grade so far (minor, junior, intermediate, senior). “I’m just flabbergasted, can’t even speak, absolutely brilliant”, was her rather hoarse reaction to breaking that horrible run. “It makes it all the sweeter too to captain the side. Fantastic performance, especially the second half, we just upped it that bit. Fiona is just pure class, put away the goals that put us on our way. The defence too were brilliant, nothing going through in the second half. They’ve been like that all year, very sticky, so clean in their play. Balls were going into them but coming straight out again, up to the forward line”.

So true, especially in the second half, when their ultra-dangerous full-forward line of McDonnell/Hughes/Grogan were kept to just one point between them. Much of the credit for that would have to go the all-O’Connor half-back line, a fact acknowledged by team coach Pa Finn. “This is a proud day, for me and for all those girls. They were absolutely superb in the second half; struggled a bit in the first half, but we spoke in the dressing-room at the break, and they came out in the second half, they were magic, absolutely superb. Joanne O’Callaghan is a great bit of stuff, but the three O’Connors were marvellous. Our midfield picked up, Linda, Rachel Moloney who came on as a sub, every single one of them was absolutely marvellous.

“ There’s an awful lot of work gone into this, and I’m getting older by the older by the bloody minute, but I’m so proud, so pleased for the girls. Tipperary have been great champions, three-in-a-row is fabulous, but now Cork will be great champions too”.

Tipp HAVE been superb champions, great ambassadors for the game, and their coach, Michael Cleary, urged them to keep their heads held high. “They lost a game, but that’s all they lost. It was inevitable they were going to get beaten at some stage; we had Cork on the back foot a few times, missed a few crucial scores, and maybe that would have made a difference. But for the last quarter of an hour, Cork were totally dominant. That’s it, we’ve had our days in the sun”.

Nevertheless, it’s a lonely station, beaten in an All-Ireland final, and team captain Una O’Dwyer was inconsolable.

“We’re absolutely gutted, but what can we say, they were better than us on the day. We came close for a while, but on the day, they were better, that’s all. I don’t know what kind of game it was too look at, but it was fierce tough, I know that. We don’t begrudge them at all, they deserve every bit of it”.