Sunday’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland final triple-header in Croke Park brought the curtain down on the inter-county camogie season, a season that threw up some interesting results, some major talking points and a few issues that probably deserve to be looked at in the close season. Séamas McAleenan takes a look back.
A CROWD of 27,181 in Croke Park and a much wider TV audience watched live on Sunday as the camogie inter-county season reached its climax.
For many, however, the event highlighted the narrow shaft of teams in with a chance of collecting national honours on the sport’s big day in Croke Park.
Reserve teams from the counties that have won this year’s senior championship and Division 1A Very National League were winners in the junior and intermediate finals and that hardly points towards the game broadening its base.
When Cork won their seventh senior title in 1970, it closed a gap of 29 years from their last. Dublin (22 wins, four times beaten finalists) and, to a lesser extent, Antrim (five and nine), had dominated those three decades 1940-70. The Saffrons and the Dubs would each win just one more title.
Over the next 55 years three counties have emerged to dominate camogie and at least one of them has contested every final since – bar 1979 (Antrim v Tipperary) and 1984 (Dublin v Tipperary).
Cork have won 24 of the last 55 titles and lost 17 finals. Kilkenny have won all their 15 titles during the last half-century, while Galway, after Sunday’s defeat, are still chasing a fifth O’Duffy Cup. They have now lost 17 finals.
Tipperary (1999-2004) and Wexford (1975, 2007, 2010-12) have broken the sequence of winners with five each. Short bursts that each made sure they maximised.
The simple truth is that game of camogie is not in a healthy position, particularly with reserve teams collecting titles at lower grades. Is there hope of change?
Last year, Waterford reached the final for the first time since 1945 and Cork destroyed them (5-13 to 0-9). The Déise didn’t make it past the quarter-finals this term, with an over-dependence on the brilliant Beth Carton for scores.
Dublin reached a rare semi-final this season by beating Kilkenny. Again Cork demolished them (4-17 to 0-9) last month.
Can either or both counties recover and become a more permanent fixture at this level?
There would appear to be a better chance with Tipperary, who took the Division 1A league title in April with a narrow victory over Galway in the final, having already eliminated Cork in the group stages.
They led Galway by two points after 57 minutes of the All-Ireland semi-final last month – but conceded three points in added time.
Tipperary’s success in the junior All-Ireland on Sunday will give younger players more experience and broaden their senior panel.
But on recent evidence Cork look as if they will always be around. They have a huge player-base, but down through the years have always been able to replace aging leaders.
The likes of Aisling Thompson and the Mackey twins have been around for a decade and a half and have filled the recent leadership roles – but others, such as the half-back line of Hannah Looney, Laura Hayes and Laura Treacy have already stepped up and will take the Leesiders further over the next couple of years.
Cork have a young enough squad and, with the intermediate success on Sunday, other players are on the way through.
An aspect of Sunday’s senior final to come under scrutiny was the refereeing.
Over the last while, players at the top level have been calling for the game to be refereed more like hurling, with plenty of physicality and a lot less stop-start for petty frees.
They are getting that now, and that is probably a positive development. However, the denial of legitimate frees cannot become the reason why a team loses a game.
On Sunday, Galway were hard done by in the closing stages when certainly Carrie Dolan, and probably Niamh Mallon, deserved frees that could well have changed the result.
In the context of some fouls blown earlier in the game, frees should have been awarded in each instance.
When I viewed the “goal” later on TV, it shouldn’t have stood. It was almost a replica of the infamous one scored by Meath’s Joe Sheridan in the 2010 Leinster football final against Louth.
This was a pivotal moment in the game, but given the pace of the move, it’s understandable that the transgression was missed.
Had the goal not stood, Cork certainly deserved a penalty for the tackle on Amy O’Connor. But that’s another story.
There was much talk in the press box on Sunday about the possibility of camogie’s governing body side-lining reserve teams to a separate competition to avoid them hogging the graded finals on All-Ireland day.
That has already happened in the leagues over the past two seasons, with the development of divisions 2B and 3B. Cork beat Tipperary in the 2B final in Abbottstown, while Westmeath and Derry featured in the 2A final in Croke Park.
Significantly, both Cork and Tipperary were winners in Croke Park on Sunday!
With the present format, are we making the strong counties stronger and keeping down the likes of Kerry and Offaly, who lost championship semi-finals to Kilkenny and Cork reserve teams this year?
The intermediate successes of Antrim (2021) and Derry (2023) were achieved under the present format. Down’s 2020 success came under Covid restrictions that kept reserve teams out of the championship. The Mourne county probably would have made it through regardless.
And that brings us to where Ulster counties currently stand.
Both Down and Antrim were relegated from the senior championship – the first time for quite a while that two counties were demoted. Why the change?
Over the last couple of years teams that finished at the bottom of their groups were involved in play-offs before just one dropped a tier.
Many seemed unaware that the play-offs were gone and the bottom team in each group would go through the trap-door this year.
In fact, it only came to my attention at the second last weekend of games, the Antrim v Waterford tie in Loughgiel. Others covering camogie in the national media were also unaware of the change and enquired if for example Offaly or Kerry had won the intermediate championship this year, would that result in 11 senior teams in the top tier next season. Cork’s win over Kilkenny guarantees just 10 (two groups of five).
Down were candidates for the drop from the start of the season. They won the 2020 intermediate title with an ageing squad, many of whom would be stepping away from the inter-county scene inside a couple of years.
Then they had to absorb the departure of Sorcha McCartan to Cork and Niamh Mallon to Galway, along with the perennial issues for all managements in the game of pregnancy and travel.
Only two of the players who won All-Ireland medals in 2020 remained – quite a turnover in four seasons!
Given the profile McCartan and Mallon have earned in their adopted counties – and indeed the re-emergence of a former player, Bríd McGourty-Rogers in Derry – many were left to wonder what if.
