Corkery: I thought we were finished

As far as Briege Corkery was concerned, Cork were dead and buried.

Eamonn Ryan’s charges would have to be content with eight All-Irelands. Briege herself would not be climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand to return Brendan Martin Leeside. This final was beyond them.

“We were 10 points down with 17 minutes to go. It was looking unlikely. I thought we were finished,” admitted the Cork captain. “I thought it was gone, but that’s an amazing bunch of girls we have and an amazing backroom team who have full faith in us. Words can’t describe it at the moment.”

Angela Walsh had delivered an impassioned speech to the Cork camogie players a fortnight ago when faced with a similarly perilous position against Kilkenny and the Inch Rovers full-back was forced to rally the troops again yesterday.

“At half-time Angela... she said we’ve 30 minutes left, we either lie down and go to sleep or we get up and we fight. As you can see we got up and fought.

“What we were thinking when they got the second goal was just keep plugging back, keep going. There was doubts at times that it was going to go past us but we just drove on, said take our points and the goals will come. Rhona Buckley came on and got an absolute beaut. That settled us down. Nollaig came in and we’re delighted she came back.

“I just said to the players entering the final quarter to keep your head, keep your head up, let’s drive on and make a good game out of it. When the goal went in it gave us great encouragement.

“We had 11 wides in the first half and we started scoring after that. We kicked three wides when we levelled it but we were going to get the scores eventually, I knew damn sure the girls would do it.”

Has there been a greater act of resurrection from this group since they set out on the road under Ryan back in 2004?

“We’ve done it once or twice before against Dublin, nine and eight points down in two different matches but that’s the spirit of our team, we never give up until it’s over.”

Paying tribute to the man who has overseen the transformation of Cork ladies’ football, she added: “Some person said recently Eamonn Ryan was a lucky manager but I’d like to correct that and just say he’s an absolutely outstanding manager, he brings such enthusiasm into training and into matches and everything we do.

“We do it for him and because we love it.”