Katrina seeks new challenge
All-rounder fulfilled her dreams in camogie and soccer
THE JUXTAPOSITION of Katrina Parrock the camogie player and Katrina Parrock the soccer star was stark but, in many ways, beautiful.
The young Katrina did graceful things with her hurl. It came from the stick rarely leaving her hands, it came from her ability on the hockey field, it came from hours of practice, it didn’t come naturally, but she made it look that way.
An image was unintentionally created around her. She was a poster girl for camogie, one possessing a shy reluctance mixed with intrigue for the position. She tried to embrace the role of carrying a game that was nationally struggling for exposure on her back.
Older Katrina was the opposite. It was less finesse, more intense press. She morphed into a powerful exponent of the beautiful game. She ran, then she ran some more; she was physical, strong and even more determined.
Soccer didn’t need her to be more than Katrina Parrock. The game was building itself, and internationally there was pressure for players to push the media needle, but at Wexford she was the ‘camogie girl’ trying to achieve something special.
The thing Katrina never lost was her ability to make teams win, no matter what game she played. She had the capability to lift those around her to a different level, to a level beyond what had come before.
That’s what Wexford sport has lost with Katrina admitting that her days at the top level are almost certainly over.
‘I will still play some sport when I can, just not at such a high level,’ she said as she reflected on her sporting career last week.
‘It was a huge part of my life. I’m still doing a lot of work myself, my own kind of personal fitness, to try to keep on top of things.
‘It was a big step for me but personally I feel it was the right step. You can’t keep playing sport all your life, especially when it’s not professional and you have to try earn a wage, so it’s important for me to concentrate on work now.
‘The word work has always been a huge part of my life and it will never leave my life. Every time I went on the field I worked, every time I put on the Wexford jersey, the Waterford college jersey or my club jersey I worked.
‘I just have to work on the money end of things now and keep working hard to earn my living. I’m 30 this year, a lot of years of sport. I don’t think it would be possible for me to play at such a high level as I did.’
It was a long, successful road for Katrina to this point. While it all started as a youngster growing up, mixing it with the boys in Our Lady’s Island, the first flicker of what she would become arrived with a trip to Croke Park in 2007.
‘I suppose it was my first or second year with the Senior panel in 2007,’ Katrina remembered. ‘Senior camogie is a big step to what I would have been playing under-age, I just turned 17 in 2007 when we made it to Croke Park.
‘Obviously the three-in-a-row created a lot more memories for me, but 2007 was an All-Ireland at the end of the day, I probably didn’t appreciate it when I was there at the time. Not so long before that I had decided on my goal to get to Croke Park and there it was, right in front of me, in the blink of an eye.
‘It was just amazing to wear the Wexford jersey that day and become All-Ireland champions and breaking such a gap in the years, a 32-year gap, was just astonishing. Looking back on the coverage from it as well, it does bring a tear to the eye, at the great memories and of the great support from Wexford as a whole.
‘We were pucking around in the warmup before in the club in Dublin and Stellah (Sinnott) turned around to me and said, “Katrina, be ready to come on. We’ll get you on at some stage today”.
‘I just had one vision of getting out onto the field, and when I got out onto the field I think I did okay for myself, scored a point from wing-forward, it was just amazing. I would like to have remembered a lot more from the day, [but] unfortunately just turning 17 it was all pretty much a blur to me.’
After missing out the next two seasons, Wexford were back in the final in 2010 and Katrina would have herself a game, scoring the critical goal as her team beat Galway to claim the county’s fifth All-Ireland title.
‘We were saying in 2007 after winning, “God, like we mightn’t ever win an All-Ireland again”. When 2010 came along we were like, “this could be our last-ever All-Ireland”, so we were taking every year as it came.
‘It was probably a great year for me (2010), achieving ‘player of the match’ in that All-Ireland. From then onwards I had a lot of support and friends around me.
‘It’s great, I can’t say anything bad about Wexford support, they are unbelievable, I can’t thank them enough for all their support. I know they are always out there looking out for me and I appreciate that so much.
‘We were very, very lucky that it kept happening and we kept winning and there was nothing in the way to stop us. The positive mental thinking of it was, “this could be our last All-Ireland”, so we have to give our best performance and that’s probably what made us so successful in our three-in-a-row.
‘Anyone in sport will tell you about the winning feeling, you just can’t beat it like, you are training so hard, training two or three nights a week, matches at weekends, travelling the country, then you just want to get the best out of the team that you can and be so positive.’
Things got more difficult on and off the field for Parrock on a personal level when her mother, Liz, was diagnosed with cancer in 2015. And while she tried to keep her eyes on sporting goals, the situation gave a maturing Katrina a different perspective.
‘I was living in a bubble, I was oblivious to the world around me,’ she admitted. ‘I had one focus, to achieve my goals and dreams in sport.
‘When 2015 hit it really shattered me. I just didn’t respect my mother the way I should and just knew she could have been gone before I even realised that.
‘Lucky enough she has my fighting ability and determination and nothing was going to get in her way, but she did need a lot of support. I knew that she wanted me to continue playing sport but I couldn’t focus on playing sport without being there to help her.
‘I tried my best for a long time for her to keep playing but it just wasn’t possible for me to keep going the way I was, thinking about her and everything she was going through and seeing her the way she was, I just wasn’t capable.
‘I really had to focus my life around her and appreciate the more important things in life, and lucky enough she’s doing really well. I never respected her as much as I do today, she’s a determined warrior.’
When Parrock did return to the playing fields, she didn’t do it with hurl in hand. There was something new on the horizon, another challenge to get her teeth into, and there was an opportunity to take that step in Ferrycarrig Park.
‘In ‘07 I either had a choice to go to soccer or camogie,’ Katrina said. ‘I had worked for years before that training camogie, I trained day in, day out. I was playing Under-17 and Under-19 international soccer as well and knew I had to decide between one or the other.
‘I suppose I had put a lot more work into camogie, I said I wouldn’t leave all that behind me and I’d go that route. Luckily enough I went that route and had great success with camogie over the years.
‘In 2016, I remember watching the Wexford Youths Women on telly lifting the Aviva Cup, I was like, wow, I’d love to be there, I’d love to experience that, it was kind of in the back of my mind the whole way through.
‘Then obviously mum’s condition started getting better and she was doing really well, so in 2017, I got contacted by Wexford Youths, wondering if I would be interested in joining them. I thought about it for a while.
‘Looking back especially to the clip I had seen on the tele of the girls lifting the trophy, [I thought] I’d love to give that a go and I’d love to set that as one of my goals to play in the Aviva, so I joined them in 2017.
‘I couldn’t believe the whole difference in levels from camogie to soccer, a huge step up. It’s 90 minutes, a lot longer of a game, only eleven on the field, I suppose you need to do a lot more work than you do on a camogie field.
‘I knew I had a lot of work to do. In 2017 we won the league which was great, I was only there for half the year.
‘Going into 2018 in pre-season, I knew I’d have to do a lot of work, I knew I wouldn’t be out onto the field, and I knew I definitely wouldn’t be out onto the field in the Aviva if I didn’t put the work in.
‘So I went to the gym, Whitford Hotel, I have to thank them very much for their sponsorship, basically I never left the place. I was there before work, after work, and then 2018 proved a great success for me, reaching the Aviva and getting player of the match.
‘It was just, Aviva and Croke Park, to play on the two biggest stages of my sporting career is just unbelievable, phenomenal, and I’m very lucky to be part of such successful teams through my years.
‘We won the league again that year, so that meant we played Champions League the following year again. My time with the Wexford Youths was amazing, and I created a lot of memories and a lot of friends that I will never forget.
‘They are an amazing bunch of girls and they work very hard. We achieved a lot and they have achieved a lot through the years.’
The end came for Parrock after the 2019 Champions League campaign.
Struggling to put in the dedication needed to fulfil high-achieving professional and sporting life, she decided it was time to step back from sport.
‘It was just harder to commute, two nights a week in Carlow, it was a lot of driving and I got promoted in work. It’s hard when you are deputy manager to try and fit sports in with your work like, it is very important to have a work/life balance, and Aldi are always for that but not just at that high level.
‘I’ve never been involved with a team that if I wasn’t able to commit I wouldn’t be there. You know, I had to make that decision, that was behind that, I wasn’t going to keep playing with the girls if I couldn’t commit.
‘They wanted me to stay on and stuff but to be honest I couldn’t if I wasn’t going to be available for training and that kind of stuff, that was my decision.’
Right now things are simple for Katrina. With sport off the table for the time being, she’s living and working away in Dublin.
She doesn’t see herself away from the pitch for too long, with management also an appealing move for her in the not too distant future.
‘It all depends on work,’ she said. ‘I’m hoping to pick up the hurl at the club level again. I miss it, I do miss it; maybe not miss it as much at such a high level, club would probably be sufficient for me for the time being. I haven’t decided [where].
‘I definitely would like to go into management at some stage, not right now but it has been a huge part of my studies with college and obviously having the experience of playing over the years would be a huge benefit for me. I definitely would love to go into it down the line, one or two years, not now, but it is my plan in the future.’
While Wexford may never see her represent her county again on the field, who knows, maybe a fifth All-Ireland camogie title will arrive as manager in the years to come.
One thing is for sure, nobody would bet against more success for Katrina Parrock in the future; it’s all she has known.