Heart-stopping and controversial, but Cork bask in glow of victory

By Michael Moynihan

A stop-start final and a heart-stopping finale?

Forgive the assonance, but the highlights in yesterday’s All-Ireland senior camogie final were in short supply. There were 21,467 in attendance, the biggest crowd since 2004, and they had to wait for thrills: the excitement, and the winning score, came in added time, just as they did last year.

Cork beat Kilkenny by the bare minimum, 0-14 to 0-13, just as they did last year.

Julia White’s late match-winner of 2017 was emulated by Orla Cotter yesterday, the St Catherine’s player showing the requisite ice in the veins to nail a difficult free from the sideline.

Orla Cotter fires over the winning point in the 2018 senior camogie final #rtegaa pic.twitter.com/RnOdJnyLrM

— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) September 9, 2018

It was a decision that enraged the Kilkenny management, and of a piece with referee Eamon Cassidy’s handling of the match.

This was an All-Ireland senior final marred by finicky officiating at the best of times: when one of the winning players makes that point about the referee, as happened after the game, you know it’s an issue.

Perhaps said referee was on edge — few pre-match pleasantries are scrutinised as closely as those between these sides, after all. A couple of years ago we had a bout of aggressive prodding between Cork and Kilkenny before the game even began, with many applauding the ironists on both teams for carrying on during the “give respect, get respect” handshake.

Consequently, since then we pick over every formality between the teams but are usually disappointed. Hopes were raised before the actual throw-in itself yesterday as there was a slight delay to the proceedings while both sides grouped together in opposite sides of the field — duelling huddles? A huddle-off? — before taking up positions.

Cork had Laura Treacy sweeping, and Gemma O’Connor further upfield than usual.

Kilkenny rotated their free player — Grace Walsh at puck outs — but neither side was able to establish dominance. Kilkenny cut off Cork’s attacks with extra bodies in the half-back line; Cork cut off the supply to the Kilkenny inside line.

On the quarter hour it was 0-4 to 0-3, all the scores but one coming from placed balls. Cork had had a sniff of goal in the form of a seventh-minute penalty, and clearly brought goalkeeper Aoife Murray the length of the field to find the net, but the captain blasted the ball over the bar.

Eamon Cassidy booked Katie Power on 20 minutes after tangling with Aoife Murray; the Cork captain was treated by the medics after that but from Cassidy’s hand gestures suggested it was for flinging Murray’s hurley away.

Denise Gaule hit a towering lead point from a free on the hallways line and added a better on one the puck out — Orla Cronin narrowed the gap to the minimum and then levelled with Cork’s last attack, 0-8 apiece at the half.

The game didn’t catch fire on the resumption either, but for much of that second half Kilkenny looked to have the advantage.

Their defenders looked sharper to the ball, frequently beating their opponents to long, cross field deliveries, while Anne Dalton at centre-back processed a world of ball and ensured Cork got no sight of goal.

For all that, Cork were two up on 45 minutes thanks to Orla Cotter’s free-taking; Gaule levelled with her own frees entering the final minutes, when the game was decided. Aoife Murray saved a Shelly Farrell effort for a 45 which Gaule converted; Chloe Sigerson hit a long-range free to nudge Cork ahead; and Gaule, again, levelled the game.

Then we had Cotter’s match-winner.

Cork match winner Orla Cotter on coming out the right side of a match that was tit-for-tat @CorkCamogie @KilkennyCamogie #rtegaa pic.twitter.com/MQRmHTAvjj

— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) September 9, 2018

In truth, the standard was poor in yesterday’s game, and not all of that was down to the tactics. It could hardly be put down to inexperience either: with two teams accustomed to the biggest stage, seeing pick-ups fluffed so regularly was a surprise.

Also somewhat surprising was the generosity of each manager to the opposing side, given previous skirmishes between the two.

Kilkenny boss Ann Downey didn’t agree with the match-winning free awarded to Cork late on, but she also pointed to the two sides’ approach to nullifying each other: “That’s the nature of the game that both of us are playing. You have to look at the strengths of both teams — ours against theirs and try to stop them playing their game as they try to stop us playing ours.

“For the last three years, really, there has been nothing between us, a point in every game we’ve played. The standard of camogie has improved but for us today, our standard was proabably only at 80%. We had to get it up to 100% to get over the line.

“All I can do is congratulate Cork. Briege Corkery winning her 18th medal — it’s a great testament to them that they can lose Rena Buckley from last year and still come back and win it again.

“They are a great side with great players but for us, we’ll have to go to a new level to try and beat them.”

Cork manager Paudie Murray had to survive a savage tackle from a cameraman to speak to the media afterwards, and he was also generous to his opponents.

“Kilkenny and ourselves have advanced the game dramatically over the last four or five years. I think both counties should be congratulated for that,” he said.

“I came into the camogie not to continue it the way it was; I came in to train the players like the hurlers and the footballers in our county and we pride ourselves on that.”

“We want to be the best prepared team and that’s the way things are going at the moment and Kilkenny would be the same way. Girls are fitter, they’re stronger, their skill levels are better, they’re being prepared better from a mental and a tactical point of view.”

Murray was sounding a slightly defensive note on the need for Cork and Kilkenny to be congratulated, one that’s understandable in view of the poverty of the spectacle.

But as his centre-back pointed out, tactical arm-wrestling isn’t just the preserve of camogie - Gemma O’Connor simply stated that the same happens in hurling and (male) football.

Could one suggest an element of sexism, even, in presuming that camogie would stay a naive matter of open, fifteen-on-fifteen shoot-outs? Would that explain the surprise at the relatively dour encounter yesterday?

Perhaps, though Cork will hardly be concerned by that this morning. Back to back All-Ireland titles, each won by a point, will warm Monday mornings all over Leeside.

Some of the more experienced Cork players were taking in their surroundings on the field long after the final whistle yesterday, and it was easy to conclude that for a few it was goodbye rather than au revoir.

For them, as the poet said, the place for a lifetime glows with noon. And for others it glows because of them.