VINTAGE CLASS
Evergreen Curry brings extra spice to the Armagh attack
THE Yummy Mummies WhatsApp group really lit up after the semi-final with messages of congratulations from friends who had shared the good, the bad and the ugly.
Briege Corkery, Orla Cotter, Síle Burns, Eimear O’Sullivan, Joanne O’Callaghan and Rena Buckley are just some of the legendary figures that had exited centre stage over the years, moving on to another phase in life.
Jenny Curry had done likewise but she is the odd one out now. After her early second-half goal in the 2014 All-Ireland senior final sparked a remarkable Cork comeback, she retired from the big stage with four triumphs at the highest level and eight All-Stars.
This was despite taking a couple of years out to travel and missing out as the Rebels won two-in-a-row in 2009. She could easily have been doing the business in 2015, ’17 and ’18 too but she hadn’t really intended to play in 2014 as it was, having moved to Monaghan to take up a teaching post and begin married life in Middletown with her new husband Paul.
Yet here she is, two months short of her 39th birthday, preparing to run out at Croke Park once more on Sunday, this time for her adopted Orchard County in the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Premier Junior final against Antrim (12pm, live on RTÉ2).
What’s more, it is her secondhalf contribution of 1-3 that broke Cavan’s resistance in Tullamore last Saturday week. She’s still got it, especially that killer instinct.
Check out the goal. With just a little more than 13 minutes of regulation time remaining and Armagh trailing by three points, a diagonal ball is played into the Cavan danger zone. Curry, at fullforward, raced towards the sliotar near the endline with the Cavan cover closing in.
Crucially, she was facing goalwards when gathering possession. In a flash, she made the necessary space and angle to deliver an unstoppable drive. Armagh never looked back.
Whatever happens on Sunday, there will be plenty of cake in the Curry household, as Jenny’s son Tiernan will be celebrating his first birthday. He won’t know much about what’s going on but Lauren, who will be three in December, is clued in.
‘For the semi-final, she was at home and watched it on TV,’ Curry says. ‘Paul was saying when I got the goal, she was like, “Yay Mummy!” And then, the full-back fouled me at one stage and she was “Don’t you hurt my mummy!” So she’s very aware.’
She knows the challenge Antrim will provide. Only two points separated them in the group stages, and after that game, Antrim’s Brónach Magill introduced herself as the primary school student that had written a letter to her the guts of a decade earlier, because she was her idol. That was and is her status. Lauren has a ready-made bona fide legend to look up to.
From that 2014 final, only Laura Treacy, Ashling Thompson and Katrina Mackey of Cork’s starting 15 will line out in the senior final. Curry had moved north a year by then and was a Middletown player when that last AllIreland was grasped, famously topping the squad’s bleep test charts despite doing a lot of work on her own as well as making regular 500-mile, eight-hour round
trips to Cork to train.
‘I was saying that myself this year, if you can travel up and down and do that then, surely you can travel 15 minutes to training a couple of times of week and play a few games.’
It wouldn’t be possible without the support of Paul, family and friends. Indeed it was her husband ‘who planted the seed’.
Her competitiveness is renowned, even on so-called fun runs, so Curry was never likely to lose her conditioning easily. She had always kept her fitness up, playing football also with crack Monaghan club Emyvale until the family expansion called a halt to that commitment. Even while pregnant, she kept in shape and that has been a big help. The biggest challenge was getting the speed back and recovery takes longer, but she is at the point where she feels she can go at full pelt for an hour now.
She had long been impressed by the talent in the Orchard County, had created a big impression with the club and with her sisters-inlaw, Orlagh and Stephanie Curry in-volved and speaking highly of the set-up, she finally relented to the itch and aren’t Armagh glad?
It will be special for her dad, Joe to make the trip up again, having shared so many wonderful days with his late wife Kathleen following their daughter around the country.
Kathleen passed away early in 2014 and Jenny’s sister, Paula died just a couple of weeks before Jenny burst through the Kilkenny defence to score the vi-tal goal in that year’s All-Ireland final. That was only two months after Jenny and Paul got married.
Joe will have Jenny’s sisters Carol and Debra for company but brothers, Michael, Damien, Joseph and Ryan will watch at home, as they are preparing for the All-Ireland coastal rowing championships the following week. She will have other supporters, too.
‘The WhatsApp group has been buzzing and I’m delighted to see that they’re excited as well. And do you know, it’s even more exciting with the Cork girls in the senior and intermediate as well. (Senior manager) Mattie Twomey would have been involved with us in 2014 as well. I’m delighted for them.
‘It’ll be strange, I suppose, not to be wearing the red but at the same time, it’s brilliant to be able to wear the orange too.
‘I can’t wait to drive into the stadium, like we used to, under the stands.
‘Even the warm-up and things like that. And to step out on the pitch again. I’m excited. I know I’ll be nervous but that’s a normal experience for me. I’m going to relish it.
‘I know days like these don’t come around too often and I’m in a very lucky position to be able to do this again at my age. So I’m just going to take every bit of it in and enjoy it with my new teammates.’
“It will be strange, not wearing red”