Another landmark day in Rena Buckley’s incredible sporting journey

Rena Buckley’s list of honours is now officially ridiculous.

This is a woman who has far more All-Ireland medals to her name - 18 as of yesterday - than most people do pairs of socks so it’s probably fitting that she keeps them all in a drawer back home in Cork.

Modest isn’t the word. The O’Duffy Cup hangs limply down by her right side, like a bag of shopping from Tescos, as she walks into the room for a chat. There’s no histrionics or grand gestures. Winning is just what she does. Fuss is something she doesn’t.

This was her seventh senior camogie All-Ireland win and when she walked up the Hogan Stand steps to collect the trophy yesterday she became the first person, to captain their native county to All-Ireland glory in both codes.

And she topped it all off with a speech made ‘as gaeilge’.

Impressive.

“It’s not something I’ve put a huge amount of thought into. In Cork it’s the winning team from the county championship nominates the captain so I’ve been very lucky. In terms of football, Donoughmore have nominated me after we won the county. Last year Inniscarra won the (camogie) county and that’s how I got nominated for captain.

“I’m really lucky. I’m at an age that when I was coming up football and camogie have been going very well in Cork and it’s fantastic to be part of it. If I was ten years older or ten years younger I mightn’t get the same spoils. I’m thrilled to be part of such a great time in Cork ladies GAA.”

To hear her talk would be to suspect that this was just some insignificant cog in the machine and not one of the parts central to making it tick but the winning of this latest medal was fashioned from an unlikely link in the chain.

Julia White’s input to Cork camogie has been considerable. The 26-year old from Douglas had four All-Ireland senior medals to her name before yesterday. She’s a former captain too but the last two years had been lost to a fractured foot and a ruptured Achilles.

Introduced as the game veered into injury-time, she somehow engineered enough room for herself to send over the winning point and one that vindicated the long struggle she subjected herself over this past 24 months or so.

“After my first injury last year I took the year out and was motivated enough coming back, but then I fractured my foot in April. So I was only back training in August. There were a few dark moments there alright, I was wondering if I’d make it back to the pace I was supposed to be at, but we have fantastic support from management.“It’s been frustrating but now hopefully I’ll come back again stronger next year. Since 2015 I’ve played about 15 minutes of championship camogie in total, today included. I got a few minutes in the semi-final as well, but the pace of the game is just unbelievable, I found that hard.

White will understand better than most the sting imposed by this defeat given she taught alongside a handful of Kilkenny panellists at Loreto Secondary School in the Marble City prior to getting her current posting at Christ King Girls School in Cork.

Ann Downey will have the job of doing the rounds and motivating the troops for another crack at it next year but the Kilkenny coach was gracious in defeat. Ultimately, she said, Cork seemed to want it more. “It wasn’t meant to be. We probably didn’t turn up in the first 20 minutes. Whether it was nerves or what I don’t know but, in fairness, the girls died with their boots on in the second-half.

“On the 60th minute it was a draw and we went a point ahead.

I thought maybe there’d be three or four minutes extra time, the six minutes was probably too long for us. But you’d have to put your hand up and say Cork wanted it more on the day.”