PICTURES: Smiles all round as victorious Rebelettes visit childrens' hospitals

The Cork Senior Ladies Football team have been visiting Crumlin and Temple Street Children's Hospitals, ahead of returning to the banks of the Lee tonight as All-Ireland Senior Champions for the eighth time in nine years.

Yesterday, the Rebelettes who had already been beaten twice by Kerry earlier in the campaign, claimed All-Ireland honours, thanks to a slender 1-10 to 1-9 win over Monaghan at Croke Park.

First stop this morning was at Crumlin, just shy of 24 hours since the Clare hurlers travelled to the hospital with the Liam MacCarthy Cup en tow.

The bulk of the Cork team brought the Brendan Martin Cup firstly to Crumlin, rekindling memories of similar visits over the years.

Cork captain Ann Marie Walsh was delighted to be able to help bring a smile to the Children's faces.

"It is nice to see a smile on their faces when they come in with the cup," she said.

"It gives them something exciting to talk about for the day as well, and it helps take their minds off being in hospital.

"It's great for us to see that there are more important things in life than playing sport and winning trophies."

Player of the Match Bríd Stack was also delighted to be on the 'Annual' hospital visits.

"This is one of the highlights of the weekend definitely, coming in and seeing all of the kids," she said.

"We've met a couple of kids from Cork already and it just makes it all of the nicer definitely."

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Reflecting on yesterday's final, Stack says it was a keenly contested encounter.

"It was end-to-end stuff. I suppose that second half there was a lot of wides and it probably wasn't the spectacle that it could have been in the second half, but thankfully we got the points when it mattered and it just carried us over the line."

Midfielder Juliet Murphy had initially retired from the game ahead of this year's Championship, but made a spectacular u-turn.

It was fitting that she picked up an eighth All-Ireland medal yesterday in her final game with Cork.

"It has been a very topsy-turvy year for us," she said.

"Against Dublin we were dead and buried and then we came back to beat Kerry after they beat us twice already earlier in the year.

"Eamon summed it up yesterday when he said that our performance in the final summed up our year. There were moments of greatness and also of not being so great.

"It's a very competitive Championship and every team is going to put it up to you and that's great for Ladies Football too. I'm just delighted to hang on to win by that point yesterday."

Cork manager Eamon Ryan says he's thankful everything came right, after a shaky start to the Summer.

"The first defeat to Kerry was probably my fault, as I was training them a bit hard," he admitted.

"I probably didn't allow enough rest time then. We played well enough in the league, but then our form dropped. We were lucky enough against Armagh.

"After the comeback against Dublin something seemed to change. We worked hard in training and I was quite confident that we would beat Kerry in Thurles, without being overly confident."

Ryan admitted that confidence wasn't there approaching yesterday's decider.

"I was nervous coming into the final, because I was wondering how we would cope with their youth, their intensity and their legitimate aggression.

"I just thought that the first 20 minutes would be crucial and if we could stand up to that and then work away and that's how it transpired actually."

The Homecoming celebrations will take place tonight on the South Mall in Cork City, with the celebrations due to start at 6.30pm ahead of the Senior team arrival at 7pm.

Cork Ladies Football will also recognise the phenomenal success of their inter county teams in 2013, having claimed National titles at U-14, U-16, Minor and U-21 along with Senior honours.