Sky’s the limit for Rockett who has set the bar so high for those to follow

Given Niamh Rockett is longest in the dressing-room it made sense to begin our conversation back at the very start.

SETTING THE BAR HIGH: Niamh Rockett is the longest serving member of the Waterford panel and has been setting the bar high for those who follow her. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Niamh Rockett wears a couple of titles within the Waterford camogie panel. Some she wears less willingly than others.

Rockett is the arthritis sufferer of the group. Poor blood circulation in the affected left leg means she’s the one they poke fun at in training for wearing leggings all the way into May.

She is the longest-serving member on the panel.

She is also the sole member of the group chasing the trifecta this Sunday. Having in her possession All-Ireland junior and intermediate medals, she only needs one more piece of silver to complete the set.

Rockett was just 16 when hitting two points from right half-forward on the afternoon of Waterford’s 2011 All-Ireland junior final win over Down. A child, and yet that wasn’t even her debut season. It wasn’t her second spin either.

Hardly halfway through her teens and she was already a three-season inter-county campaigner.

Waterford held their All-Ireland final media event upstairs at the SETU Arena in Carriganore last Friday evening. Rockett was the first player we approached. The same as she does on the field, she set a high bar for those coming after her.

The PE teacher and veteran of 15 campaigns was in flying form. Brilliant company and carrying a bag full of one-liners.

Given she is longest in the dressing-room and therefore can offer perspective from a faraway time when the county struggled to emerge from the game’s third tier, it made sense to begin our conversation back at the very start.

“I was brought onto the panel a few weeks before the 2009 junior All-Ireland. I was only 14 at the time,” Rockett begins.

“I got on the starting team the following year and was 15 playing the 2010 All-Ireland. It was crazy.

“I was so lucky that there were six or seven of my clubmates from St Anne’s already on the panel, the likes of Charlotte and Annette Raher, Karen Kelly, Jennie Simpson, Pauline Cunningham and Mairead Murphy. They took me under their wing.

“If I got flattened on the pitch, the girls would be straight over to say, 'leave her alone, she is only 14'. And that was a fairly common occurrence too.” 

But once they learned she could mind herself, the stabilisers were taken off and her free pass revoked.

Rockett recalls their weekend trip to Wexford’s Maldron Hotel in 2009 to walk through what their All-Ireland final weekend would look like in Dublin. The junior final was pencilled in for a 12-noon start, necessitating an overnight stay and an early Sunday morning rise. All of which they would practice in Wexford.

Shona Curran is a selector in Seán Power’s backroom team. Back in 2009, she was a player and lead prankster.

“Shona rang my room the evening before pretending to be the hotel receptionist. She said management have specifically asked that you receive a wake-up call. I was like, ‘no, I am okay, I will set my alarm’, but she replied that ‘your management wants this wake-up call for you, and it looks really bad’.

“She rang me at 6.30am the next morning, even though we didn’t have to be down for breakfast until 8am. I went down, but sure there was no one there.

“They welcomed me in, even if they made me the laughing stock on occasion.”

From there to here has been quite the spin. The Déise spent only four years at intermediate level before buying a ticket to the big show. For Rockett, it felt much longer.

It was during their intermediate stay that she was told she had arthritis in her knee, how there wasn't an ounce of cartilage left, and that if she stayed playing, she could be in a wheelchair by 30.

Both she and her dad, Eddie, cried tears that afternoon in Santry when the diagnosis was delivered.

“At one stage, I thought even playing itself would become a distant memory. Having overcome so many obstacles to get back playing, that intermediate win in 2015 was amazing.” 

That win offers further perspective when you consider the road travelled by the two finalists since. Eight years on, Waterford are involved in the senior decider. Kildare, meanwhile, were unable to field in this year’s championship.

From each Waterford player having to bring €2 to training sessions to pay for floodlights to every club in the county swinging open their gates to them.

The 2020 All-Star went down to her local shop the day before we chatted. She was stopped by four people, all of whom simply wanted to inform her that they were following the team to Croker. From indifference to insatiable excitement.

“I think we will have to go underground the week of the game,” laughs the provider of 3-6 in this summer’s championship. “Or maybe leave the county. We could go back to the Maldron in Wexford! I can’t ever remember a build-up or buzz like this before, and I’m around a while.

“If we were to win, the last you'd see of us is going over the bridge in Waterford on Sunday, and then you’d not see us again until Christmas. It would absolutely blow up.

“I couldn't think of any more of a wish I would have than to have that Cup coming home with us on Sunday.”