Herculean Hayes hails early-season endeavour as Cork continue to grow

It was a far cagier affair at Azzurri Walsh Park, where Aoife Donohue’s goal on six minutes proved the difference for Waterford in a 1-13 to 0-13 win against Galway.

PLAYER OF THE MATCH: Cork's Laura Hayes is presented the player of the match award by Brian Molloy. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Clohessy.

Alarm bells were ringing down Leeside as a Cork team that has reached the last five finals of the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior camogie championship, underwent major surgery and results reflected the transition.

The Centra League and following Munster Championship did not yield a lot in terms of results but with retirements, injuries and others available for different reasons, a number of younger and newer players were blooded.

It was a process that was always going to take time and according to Laura Hayes, it is still continuing but we are beginning to see the yield of the significant work being done. Progress was being made back then, even if there weren’t too many victories.

And now, after a herculean performance from the former player of the year drove them to a 0-21 to 0-18 victory over an excellent Tipperary at FBD Semple Stadium yesterday, they all but have a semi-final berth assured with a 100% record from two outings and a game against Waterford to come.

“We’re absolutely delighted to get over the line and I suppose it’s pleasing in a way that it wasn’t a perfect performance at all but we still ground out the win so we’ll take a lot from that,” said Hayes.

“We knew we were gonna be up for a big battle (but) we had a very positive result the last day (beating Galway) and we just wanted to come here and back that up today. That was what our main focus and we were just delighted to get the result.

“We had a really, really tough League and a really tough Munster and that’s certainly not something we’re used to. Cown in Cork there was a huge turnover of players, a lot of new players in and it took them and all of us time to bed in together.

“But I honestly think that we’ve been actually working so hard, we’ve been plugging away training, doing a lot of fitness, a lot of hurling and by the time we came back, we were really hungry but this is just a group game so there’s a high possibility we’ll meet any of these teams again and it could be a different story, so we won’t be getting ahead of ourselves.”

Eimear McGrath shot nine points, including four from play and Eimear Heffernan and Grace O’Brien added seven between them but Cork just had a little more in the tank, Amy O’Connor matching McGrath’s contribution, though with one less from play, and Saoirse McCarthy and Sorcha McCartan splitting the posts eight times between them.

It was a far cagier affair at Azzurri Walsh Park, where Aoife Donohue’s goal on six minutes proved the difference in a 1-13 to 0-13 scoreline. Beth Carton top-scored for the hosts with eight points, five from frees, but in a game in which defences held say, Niamh McPeake’s five points from play were crucial.

Workrate was the non-negotiable referred to by McPeake and manager Cathal Murray, as champions Galway got off the mark, having shown the ill effects of an eight-week period of inactivity in a sub-par performance in defeat to Cork last weekend.

“We would have been really disappointed with our performance last weekend so we came down here looking for a performance more than a result and thankfully we got the two of them,” said McPeake, who walked away with player-of-the-match honours.

“We let ourselves down big time last week with our workrate and that’s something we really went after today. When you work hard you’re always going to get the result.

“It was really tough. Waterford are a really physical team and coming down to their home patch, we knew it was going to be tough but thankfully we came out on the right side.” Murray was more than happy to talk up Cork after last week’s victory by the Rebels but it was the character of his players that stood out for him yesterday.

“Last week was disappointing from our point of view but the credit had to go to Cork,” said Murray. “They were exceptional and we weren’t at the races. We weren’t up to the level they’re at and we haven’t much time to get up to that level.

“Coming down to Walsh Park against Waterford – we know how good the Waterford team are – and I thought it was a brilliant, brilliant game.

“Going in at half-time we were under pressure, only two points up. There’s a really strong wind here. I thought in the second half we showed real character and a real will to win and our workrate was incredible and we used the ball really well.

“We got serious impact off the bench. I think Caoimhe Kelly got a couple of points, Niamh Niland got a point off the bench and you need that. You need people coming off the bench and impacting the game and thank God we got that.

“So we’re really happy. It’s momentum I suppose. We’re in a better position than we were this time last week but we’re still a long way off a semi-final spot so there’s still a lot of work to do.

“But it was all about a win for us, no matter how we got it today. It doesn’t make up for last week but it shows there’s resilience and character in the group and it shows we can react to a performance like that.

“Waterford don’t lose too many matches down here so it’s a brilliant win for us and it gets us back on track.”