Cahalane: Spirit and freshness sealed back to back titles for Cork

The St Finbarr's woman pointed to Cork's injection of young talent

Cork captain Molly Lynch and vice caprtain Meabh Cahalane raise the O'Duffy cup after defeating Galway in the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior camogie final at Croke Park Picture; Eddie O'Hare

Cork vice-captain Méabh Cahalane’s All-Ireland final lasted just over 15 minutes but as her manager Ger Manley mentioned afterwards it was a triumph that she played at all such was the hamstring tear she suffered in June.

“She got back in six weeks with the injury she had,” smiled Manley. “That’s the spirit that we’ve shown all year really, they just worked so hard. We’ve put so much into this, we started at the start of the year very late, purposely to plan for this: this was our aim, to get back, and we got back.” 

With Galway in the ascendancy, Cahalane came on for Hannah Looney and helped stem the tide. The St Finbarr's woman always felt the injection of young talent after last year’s All-Ireland success would stand to them this season even if their third-place finish in Division 1A felt to the playing group like a letdown.

“Every year there’s a bit of a freshness added to the panel and this year the panel was rejigged and we started out the league campaign and the league is about experimenting with players but in hindsight we probably would have been disappointed with our overall league campaign.

“We still went out to win it but there is huge competitiveness in training and even when you’re struggling with niggles and fatigue you’re looking over your shoulder and the last number of weeks even when I was injured, I didn’t feel like I was going to get straight back into the team.

“I felt I had a role to play and possibly coming on in the semi-final or final like I did today and I just feel like that’s the mentality of the whole group. Whatever I can bring to the table, whether it’s starting, coming on, everybody plays a different role.” 

Having put behind them two final defeats with victory over Waterford last year, the question for Cork this season was had their appetite for success been satiated. Cahalane never doubted it.

“Going into the final, I was thinking about the hunger and I don’t think that went away from last year. We were so hungry for success this year, so hungry going out in every single training session trying to get something out of it and I think that’s the standard that Liam Cronin sets as hurling coach.

“He was under no illusions today that Galway were going to put up a huge test and we knew that would give us a huge physicality test and even a mental test because Galway are a team that you’re never going to put away especially in a final. They seem to rise to the occasion.

“I felt the mentality of the girls showed today to ride that wave when Galway were coming at us was something else and they could be so proud of themselves.”