Murray: Telling us we won a lucky All-Ireland last year is an insult
THE implication that Cork’s record 27th AllIreland camogie title last year was a ‘lucky one’ appears to have given them extra motivation ahead of Sunday’s huge senior rematch with Kilkenny.
“A lot of people have come to us and said that Kilkenny ‘lost’ that game, which was quite an insult because we were the ones that were going for it towards the end,” Cork captain Aoife Murray (inset) says.
“It has kind of been posed to us that we, maybe, didn’t deserve it as much as Kilkenny.
“That doesn’t really upset us. People say those things and often that’s maybe the only game they’ve gone to all year.”
The comment obviously strikes a nerve, even though it’s not a view shared by afficionados of the game, who appreciate the magnificent quality of Cork’s dramatic 2017 comeback.
Centreback Gemma O’Connor equalised from inside her own half as the game moved into stoppage time and then, with virtually her first puck of the game in the 67th minute, super-sub Julia White hit a wonder point to win it.
Scoring
“The Canal End was the scoring end in that game, it was very hard to score into Hill 16 with the way the weather was,” Murray recalls.
“We knew at half-time that we should have had two more points on the board for security.
“Kilkenny came out and got three points on the trot straight away, but we never gave up.”
For neutrals, the game’s other big talking point was that it lacked drama until those late exchanges.
It was the first goal-less final since 2009, reflecting the ultra-defensive bent that camogie has begun to now take.
Cork, though, have since bucked that trend, racking up a massive 15-121 in six games this summer.
Kilkenny’s more defensive approach, albeit in a tougher group, has seen them score only 1-43.
However, when the sides met in this year’s Division 1 league decider, Kilkenny won their third title in-arow 0-15 to 1-11, in the sort of arm-wrestle that these sides typically play out.
Since then the Rebels have caused ripples by pulling 17-time dual All-Ireland winner Briege Corkery out of the hat ahead of their AllIreland semi-final defeat of Tipperary.
Corkery hadn’t played for two years, but came off the bench in the dying minutes, just four months after giving birth to her first child.
Parachuting her back in could, arguably, demotivate some team-mates who have trained all year, but Murray says Corkery’s return has had the opposite effect.
“I don’t even think most people got to the end of the sentence ‘Briege is back’ before they were smiling.
“She’s got 17 All-Irelands and if we ever held a grudge about her coming back, I don’t think it would say a whole lot about us as fans of the sport and how much we respect our team-mates,” she stresses.
“Anybody who knows Briege knows that she’s never given anything less than 100pc to anything and she’s also made us laugh more than we’ve probably laughed in a long time.
“Briege could train four times for you and milk 500 cows on the same day,” she adds.
“I had to stop her once when she had broken her wrist and we were playing in our first ever Munster club final.
“She was trying to go home to the garage to get the angle-grinder to cut her plaster off so I refused to drop her home!
“Seeing a young mum come back like that, it just shows that it’s doable,” Murray adds.
“Tadhg (Corkery’s son) comes to our training sessions. It’s brought a great family feel to it and hopefully that will be reflected in the final and we can give her the best thanks that we possibly can.”
Sunday is also a huge family affair for the Murrays from Cloughduv, as Aoife’s brother Paudie manages the team and her brothers Kevin (coach) and Damien (logistics) are also deeply involved.