Briege over troubled water

Briege Corkery was in New Zealand when she heard the news.

Norma Kelly, former Cork player and cousin of current midfielder Norita, was on the other end of the telephone line. Corkery thought Norma was having a laugh, but the news was true. Cork had lost to Tyrone in the quarter-finals of the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies senior football championship. The dream of six-in-a-row was over.

That was August 2010 and Cork haven’t lost a championship game since. The response has been emphatic.

Indeed, the Banagher reverse against Tyrone is Cork’s only championship defeat in eight seasons.

“I was thinking that they were definitely going to beat Tyrone,” Corkery recalls. “Things seemed to be going really well in the League, they seemed to be flying. It was just a shock when I found out. Norma rang me and told me they’d lost. I thought she was joking. But from what I heard later, the girls just said that training wasn’t going according to plan, that they weren’t as focused as other years. That’s what happened.”

For Corkery, the year out was paradise. Travelling with her boyfriend, they spent a week in Thailand, six months in Australia, four months in New Zealand and the final two months in America.

She returned refreshed and hungry for football. And she came back to a group of players hellbent on exorcising those Banagher demons.

“I was delighted with the year off,” she nods. “Not that I wanted to get away, it was just that I always wanted to go travelling. I felt it was a good time to do it. I was after being let go from my job so I said I might as well head off for a year. I didn’t do anything when I was away. I knew that when I came home I’d be playing again. It was good to winter for the year!”

When she returned, Corkery learned even more about Banagher, the pebble in team manager Eamonn O’Shea’s shoe. As a group, it was resolved to right the wrong of that defeat.

“Try not to let it happen again is the main thing,” Corkery says. “It’s going to happen – we are going to lose another championship match, no doubt about that. And as the girls said, they knew that it was coming for a long time. They knew training wasn’t going right, that they weren’t as focused as normal. If you’re focused 100% and you lose, you’re happy enough but things weren’t right, girls weren’t their usual selves.

“Maybe it was a slight touch of complacency. It’s hard to keep the focus going for so many years in a row.”

Since Corkery returned from her travels, she’s added two more All-Ireland ladies senior football championship medals to her career haul. That’s seven now, lest we forget four All-Ireland senior camogie medals. And she’s still just 25.

When she’s not busy being a dual star, Corkery works in the Muskerry Veterinary clinic in Macroom. She’s a stonemason by trade but work in that field has dried up with the downturn. “Monday-Wednesday I’m out with the vets, testing the cattle,” Corkery smiles. “Then I’m in the office on a Thursday. I’d miss the stonemasonry, I really enjoyed it. Nothing really attracted me to it. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was after trying trainee auctioneering for nine or ten months. That didn’t suit me so I left it. A friend of mine introduced me to the stonemasonry and I ended up there for four years.

“It is very time consuming, not the fastest work in the world,” Corkery explains. “Sometimes you have to get up and walk away from it, it can do your head in at times. But it’s really enjoyable.”

Corkery is the type who will try her hand at anything. When she got that call from Norma Kelly in August 2010, she was near Auckland in New Zealand, milking cows. “Some days we were down to one dollar each,” she smiles. “That’s travelling for you.” But home is where the heart is and Corkery now lives at home with her parents in Macroom. Training sessions are 35-40 minutes away and success makes the commitment that bit easier.

“When you’re winning it’s a lot easier to come back every year,” Corkery admits. “The last couple of years haven’t gone our way in camogie but Paudie Murray came in and gave us a great step up. Our aim at the start of the year is Croke Park and All-Ireland final day. There’s another All-Ireland in us if we work hard and be really committed. But that’s a great Wexford side, Galway are still there and Kilkenny will be back up there. It’s not easy.”

During her senior intercounty career, Corkery has won four camogie-ladies football doubles, in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009. Ditto Rena Buckley, who captained the footballers to All-Ireland glory this year. For the pair, football success brought obvious solace after the disappointment of losing to Wexford in the camogie decider.

“It did soften the blow,” Corkery admits. “That is for sure. It’s good to get a second chance to play in Croke Park. I don’t mean to take it from Wexford, they were just unbelievable, but we could have worked a little bit harder as a unit. It just didn’t click for us on the day.”

Next year, perhaps, and Corkery is happy to confirm that she’ll be back for more. Camogie success would be lovely but as always, the footballers will start the season as favourites for the All-Ireland title. “There’s a great bunch of girls there,” Corkery says. “I came up with a bunch that are very focused and very committed. We had two girls driving from Dublin twice a week – Geraldine O’Flynn and Mairead Kelly. Twice a week, no expenses. Elaine Harte’s been coming from Tipp for the last five years, through the toll brides with no refunds. They have to be admired.”