Sarah Sexton puts on brave face for Milford’s biggest day

Sarah Sexton is smiling but the moistening of the eyes reveals the hurt. A tough, uncompromising defender, an inspirational leader, her ethos is centred on the primacy of the unit, the team.

Now is no different and her personal torment is of least import as Milford close in on another AIB All-Ireland senior club camogie final. So she tries to hide it.

But, you can’t tell me Paul O’Connell didn’t shed a tear in private at the prospect of missing the World Cup, quarter-final of not being able to lead his team out against Argentina. When he was on his own, this giant must have felt robbed and cheated.

So it surely is for Sexton too. The group comes first but the fact that she cannot help them on the pitch to achieve the ultimate goal is devastating. That she is captain doesn’t really make it any worse because there is nothing worse than not participating.

A busted cruciate has made her an onlooker, though her stubbornness meant that she fought that fate off for nearly four months before finally yielding. Now, she most contribute in a different way.

She is grateful to the girls for allowing her that opportunity but even if they weren’t best friends, there would surely be a touch of self-interest in their desire to keep her involved. It pays to have people like Sarah Sexton around.

Looking out over the pitch from one of the Croke Park boxes, Sexton recalls the wonder of Milford winning their first All-Ireland in 2013 by defeating Killimor, who provide the opposition again tomorrow.

“We were just trying to win our first county,” she smiles, contemplating the dreamlike campaign. “We thought if we got out of Cork, we’d be happy enough with that. Then we got our first county, our first Munster and our first All-Ireland. It was pretty amazing alright.

“We were in county final after county final. We were in four county finals in six years and we just couldn’t get over the line. Frank Flannery came in that year. When he came in that morning and said ‘We are going to win an All-Ireland’, we were thinking ‘We just want to win a county.’ We came in on the third of March and we won the All-Ireland on the second of March the following year.

“That’s all we needed I think. A bit of confidence. We were good enough but we just couldn’t get across the line.”

The belief existed, established from years of dominance through the age levels and adult grades. It was buried deep beneath the surface.

“We all started off together. Ann Watson and Sheila Kavanagh started the club in school. There were seven or eight girls in the village around the same age so they started the camogie club. That was in ’97. Then we were going to Community Games and Féile. We won everything from U12.”

All the way to senior. That proved a serious stumbling block but not an insurmountable one. The losses left a residue but like all high achievers, the players used them in a positive fashion and still do.

“You take those losses, you bring them with you. You bottle the hurt over the years. We knew we were good enough. We just had to get there.”

The three-in-a-row bid was ended at the semi-final stage by Galway champions Mullagh last term but the hunger remains. As Sexton says: “You have to make hay while the sun shines.”

There have been a couple of tight games, not least when Milford needed a point from Emer Watson to bring the Munster semi-final with Burgess-Duharra to extra time. And defending champions Oulart-The Ballagh were always going to offer a stern test last time out.

Milford tend to come out on the right side of the close ones though, confirming that the brittleness of the past is long gone. That is thanks to women like Sexton, though the 27-year-old points to others.

“There’s leaders throughout the team. There’s the obvious names like Anna Geary and Ashling Thompson but you have the others like the Watson sisters (Emer and Maria), Elaine O’Riordan… there’s leaders from start to finish in that team. We’ve been through it all together before. There’s experience there.”

Before throw-in, Sexton will deliver some few words. She doesn’t know what the message will be and it won’t be prepared. It will come from the heart and that will be enough.