Camogie: Rebels’ victory secures semi-final place

Cork made it four wins from four in Group 2 of the Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship with a 1-13 to 0-11 win over Offaly at St Brendan’s Park in Birr but manager Paudie Murray deemed it their poorest performance of the campaign.

Last year’s beaten finalists must now await the final round of matches next week as well as the quarter-finals before returning to action in the All-Ireland semi-final on August 19. Murray revealed All-Ireland champions Kilkenny along with Galway had representatives in attendance in Birr to run the rule over the Leesiders and maintained that they would not have seen anything to worry them.

“First of all I’m happy with the win,” Murray said. “The negative would be that we never really brought our level of intensity or workrate to compare with the first three games. But in defence of the girls, we had qualified, so the result was irrelevant. We just never got into gear compared to our first three games. Offaly were going to be a tough test anyway. The wind was a factor too.”