Camogie gets the final it needed. Galway get the win they craved

Baby Eana Kelly, son of team physio Clona Kelly, in the O’Duffy Cup. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

After a build-up dominated by off-field matters and late night disciplinary hearings, Camogie needed a final spectacle to wrestle the conversation back inside the whitewash.

Credit so to the players of Cork and Galway. They obliged in spades.

Following on from the free-scoring Galway-Kilkenny decider of 2019 and the hard-edged arm wrestle between the same pair last December, this final went to another level again.

Proceedings yesterday were physical, uncompromising, attritional. Relentless too, at times.

Playing her part in contributing to the above was referee Liz Dempsey, the Kilkenny official keeping her whistle tucked away for large swathes of the hour. And what a welcome change this was to the many camogie finals of the last decade overshadowed by their stop-start nature and the pernickety officiating of those in charge.

The conversation, thankfully, was much different on this occasion.

Indeed, it was to winning manager Cathal Murray’s credit that even in his emotionally spent state that he was able to look beyond their victory and realise the quality of fare at hand and Dempsey’s role in facilitating such.

“There is a group of referees that are letting the game flow and it's really contributing to the matches,” said Murray.

“Fair play to Liz, I thought she had a great game. Finals are a lot better now and games are a lot better. That's a lot to do with the refereeing, with the new rules helping as well.” 

If Murray was complimentary of the woman in the middle, then the woman who stood in the middle of the Hogan Stand at game’s end was even more effusive in her praise of Murray.

It is three and a half years since the Galway players passed a no-confidence vote in manager Tony O’Donovan four months after he’d taken up the role. The county - who had fallen adrift of pace-setters Cork and Kilkenny - had raced through three managers in just two and a half years.

Into the breach stepped Murray in April of 2018 and while that season’s campaign again ended at the semi-final juncture - the fourth time in five years they’d exited at this stage, the last three years have seen three consecutive final appearances bookended by a pair of All-Ireland wins.

In her acceptance speech, Sarah Dervan said Murray had brought Galway to an elite level, a comment she was asked to expand on when chatting to reporters an hour after pocketing her third All-Ireland senior medal in this her eighth final.

“Cathal always demands the best for us. We always get fed, we always get treated exactly the way any county hurling team would and I think that's huge.

“Cathal never let us down, he always fought for us. It's an elite level now and I'm just so delighted to have such a massive backroom team that have huge experience and knowledge. It's really because of them, that's why we're here on the right side of the final result two years out of three.” 

Dervan and those alongside her inside the whitewash did their bit too, of course.

The full-back made a vital interception early in the second half to cut out an Amy O’Connor handpass bound for Katriona Mackey. Had it stuck, Cork were through on goal. This defensive piece was mirrored in the first half by the two other members of the Galway full-back line, Shauna Healy and Dervla Higgins both getting their hurley to Cork handpasses bound for well-placed red shirts.

These interceptions went a distance to summing up a difficult afternoon for Cork in front of Sarah Healy’s goal.

Their four first-half wides were four off-target placed-ball efforts, while among their five second-half wides was an Amy O’Connor goal chance blasted the wrong side of the post.

“Their conversion rate was much better than ours,” said Paudie Murray as he raked over his third All-Ireland final defeat as manager.

Cork trailed this contest from the 70th second until briefly restoring parity for less than a minute deep in first-half stoppages. They were level for only the second time on 46 minutes and it wasn’t until Katriona Mackey’s 48th minute goal that they hit the front for the first time.

What ultimately decided the contest was the reaction of both teams to this green flag.

In the remaining 12 minutes of regulation time and three additional minutes played, Galway outscored their opponents by 1-4 to 0-1, 1-2 of this tally coming uninterrupted in the 10 minutes after Mackey’s strike.

Niamh Kilkenny, Caitriona Cormican, and Sarah Dervan were part of the Galway set-up that came up short to Cork in the 2008 final. Several more of their current teammates had arrived on the scene for the 2015 final shaded by those in red. In total, Galway have lost to Cork on seven occasions on the concluding day of action.

Yesterday was not to be the eighth, the class of 2021 following in the footsteps of the history-makers of 1996 who were honoured at half-time.

Cork's victory in front of the DRA on Saturday night was not to be followed by a second victory here.

“Years gone by, we reacted in the wrong way. This year, we said that no matter what Cork threw at us, we're going to react the way we wanted to, and we drove on and got the next point and put a little bit of belief back in us,” said Dervan.

While Ailish O’Reilly’s 54th minute Hogan Stand sideline free - the first time she was asked to stand over a dead-ball all afternoon following the substitution of first-choice freetaker Carrie Dolan seconds earlier - and Siobhan McGrath’s subsequent goal were key Galway scores, it was Niamh Kilkenny, the same as she did in the 2019 win, who stood tallest coming down the stretch.

Providing the necessary leadership, the six-time All-Star got herself onto possession and had the vision to twice pick out Orlaith McGrath for the two injury-time points that made certain Galway’s fourth O’Duffy Cup triumph.

“She's an incredible leader for the team,” said Cathal Murray.

“I'd say she's the only person who saw Orlaith in so much space for the second-last point. Incredible ball across. Orlaith took it really well. And Orlaith's last point was just incredible.

"Just hugely proud of the effort, two All-Irelands in three years. I'm delighted to be working with them, hugely proud to be manager of a team like that."