Doyle: That was as good as it gets

It may have been one of the best All-Ireland camogie finals seen at Croke Park, but to Wexford manager JJ Doyle, it was “horrendous” viewing, even though his team had produced a performance of the ages.

It wasn’t until Ursula Jacob pointed an injury-time 45 to put seven points between the sides that Doyle finally allowed himself to believe his side would prevail.

“What do I remember from it?” he responded to a query. “Just that Cork didn’t back down. We got ahead by six points in the first half and they came back at us. There was no sense of panic even though we went in at half time level. We knew we were good enough to do it. I said to a lot of people during the week that we believed coming back up here that these girls hadn’t reached their full potential. I think today we can tick that box because that performance out there was probably as good as I’ve seen any camogie team play. It’s very special but a performance like that just adds to the specialness [sic] of it.”

Having seen a six-point lead whittled away before the break there was some hairdryer treatment in the dressing room at the interval but it wasn’t the manager dispensing the stern words.

“There were things said in there at half time that wouldn’t be going out before the watershed,” said Doyle. “But I mean, that’s what it is. That’s what passion is about and that’s what winning All-Irelands is about. It’s not done easy.

“Wexford have only won seven All-Irelands in the history of camogie and this crowd have won four of them. We have winners in that dressing room and we weren’t losing that, no way.”

Cork’s Rena Buckley has won many All-Irelands in camogie and football, but that doesn’t make defeat any easier. She had no doubts though about the merit of the champions’ victory.

“We’d worked our way back into the game and felt if we could just push on from there [we could win]. But unfortunately it was all Wexford in the second half really. We just didn’t have the firepower, we just couldn’t claw it back. Full credit to the girls, they fought right to the very end but it just wasn’t our day.”