Rena ready to bring it all back home
Having collected All-Ireland medals in ladies football and camogie at senior, minor and U16 with Cork, and two senior All-Ireland club football titles with Donoughmore, there’s something she’d dearly love to add to her collection, a senior All-Ireland club camogie medal with Inniscarra.
“It would be just unbelievable,” the 23-year-old physiotherapist offers. “There’s a great old buzz and great colour around the parish and you’re constantly being reminded of it. It’s kind of different to the county and I couldn’t call one over the other. We just can’t wait for it. It’s been some journey for us.”
Such an ascent to the summit of club camogie, she admits, hasn’t happened overnight, which makes their renaissance as a superpower in the county, all the more sweeter.
“When I started playing with Inniscarra underage we were competitive but after that there was a lull and we were a bit down. We questioned where the club was going so to turn it around the way we have done has been amazing.”
To that end, selector Fergal O’Leary can extract a share of the plaudits. “Why it has taken us this long to discover our potential is a question I can’t answer but definitely, the structures put in place a few years ago have helped,” he said.
“We got all the panel together a couple of years back, discussed our plan for the future and they all seemed to row in behind it. That came to the fore, it meant minors, juniors and seniors all working together to improve things. Some would’ve questioned bringing young girls into the panel, some as young as 14, but it has benefited us.”
Club chairman Sean Twohig must’ve wondered if he’d ever see such a day. “It’s a dream come true for the club to be in the final and we really are determined to do well, having won the senior county for the first time in our club’s history. It would be the icing on the cake to be crowned All-Ireland champions.
“They’re a fantastic bunch of girls, the best you could hope for. We’ve a panel of 33 and they’ll do whatever it takes to make it down for training without a complaint. It makes our jobs as selectors very difficult because we’ve such a panel and we still haven’t a team picked for tomorrow. That tells you how hard it is.”
He’s under no illusions about the job in hand: “We’re the underdogs. We went up to see the other-semi final between Oulart-the-Ballagh (Wexford) and Killimor, and Oulart were favourites so to see them beaten tells us what we’re up against. It’s a massive test but we’re up for it.”
Twohig pays tribute to the talent on the team.
“People think it’s all about our Cork contingent but it’s not. We’ve Rena (Buckley), Joanne (Casey) and Niamh (Dilworth) but Rena’s twin sister, Mary’s a quality player too. Niamh McCarthy in the corner is going to be a star, I could go on.
“They’ve won everything at underage, Cloghroe NS — where a lot of them went to school — won Sciath na Scols by the double, every underage medal to be won it’s in Inniscarra, but this is the big one.”
Injuries have been part of the course for Inniscarra’s odyssey, with Aoife Kavanagh, Katie O’Mahony, Rena Buckley and captain Margaret Noelle O’Sullivan all having to sit out important games, and tomorrow they’ll be without prolific forward Niamh McCarthy, still only 15.
“She’s a massive loss,” said O’Leary. “This would have been her stage. Brian Cody saw her playing up in Kilkenny a couple of years ago and said she was the best he’d ever seen and Rena believed she’s 10 years ahead of herself. She’s that good and trust me, she’ll be a star but we’ll focus on what’s in our control.”
* The Camogie Association confirmed Setanta Sports will broadcast the All-Ireland Club Camogie finals as part of a deferred package on Wednesday. The one-hour programme will include the All-Ireland Intermediate final with Eoghan Rua (Derry) facing The Harps (Laois) and the senior decider clash of Cork’s Inniscarra and Killimor of Galway. The programme will air on Setanta Sports on March 9 at 5pm.
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