History made by Waterford while there's huge wins for Cork, Limerick and Galway as end of Camogie groups approaches
The All-Ireland champions continue to cast a long shadow over the rest of the Group 1 field, with the visitors scoring all three goals in the first ten minutes of Saturday's round-robin clash at The Ragg.
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Katrina Mackey is no stranger to the back of the net
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Great result for Galway and Caoimhe Kelly
That set them up for a comfortable afternoon, with O'Connor going on to score 1-13, 1-5 of it from play, in a 3-21 to 1-9 hammering.
Player of the match O'Connor said: 'It was a very good performance. We started well and set our stall out early.
'There will be a couple of things for us to work on, particularly in terms of how we set up for the puckouts and our efficiency in the second half, but overall we can be happy.
'Our full-forward line at the moment, you have seven or eight players and any of the seven or eight could play.
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"When people are coming on and performing as well as Kate Wall and Ciara O'Sullivan did there, it's great to see Sorcha McCartan back, everyone's under pressure all the time. If you don't perform, you won't play.'
In Owenbeg, meanwhile, GALWAY hammered DERRY 4-25 to 0-5 in a Group 2 game thanks to goals from Mairéad Dillon, Aoife Donohue, Sabine Rabbitte and Caoimhe Kelly.
The Tribes' manager Cathal Murray said: 'We had a really good spread of scorers. We had a good performance, and we're very happy to have two wins out of two and be out to a good start in the group.
"We got a lot out of the game, we've a two-week break now before the Kilkenny game which is shaping up to be a massive match after their result. They'll be fired up and eager to bounce back.'
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The departure of manager Jerry Wallace at the end of the Very League and the subsequent postponement of their Munster final against Cork in the lead-up to the historic Special Congress decision to allow camogie players the choice between wearing shorts or skorts had WATERFORD in the spotlight without ever pucking a ball.
On Saturday, however, they were the story of the second weekend in the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Championship for all the right reasons.
RTE pundit Joe Canning urges GAA to make huge change for Leinster hurling final as fans 'totally agree'
Thanks to a strong finish, the Déise recorded their first-ever Championship win over KILKENNY — and their first win over them in ten attempts in any competition since returning to senior a decade ago — on a 0-17 to 0-10 scoreline in front of a large crowd at Nowlan Park.
Waterford's Niamh Rockett, who scored nine points, told
'We were bullied against Kilkenny in the league. They were standing over us, really loud and really going for it from the get-go.'
Mick Boland, who stepped in to replace Wallace, said: 'Any management changeover in mid-season is difficult. But the thing about it is, most of the management were in there before, so there was continuity, there was no real change.
'After Jerry stepped back, the girls pushed us to take over, and it was seamless. We targeted this match at the start of the year, and the result was unbelievable, the performance was very good.
"There were patches there in the second half where we lost our way, but we pulled it back and got the tide going our way again.
'We missed a lot of opportunities, our conversion rate, especially when it came to goals, was poor. We probably left four goals behind us and on bigger days you won't win those matches.'
HEATING UP
Another local derby will be the focus of the fixture list in round three, with CLARE to host LIMERICK in Group 1. After Clare had beaten WEXFORD in the first round, Limerick followed up with a 1-10 to 0-10 win against the Models in Rathkeale on Saturday.
While that result leaves Wexford's hopes of securing a knockout place hanging by a thread, the winner of next Saturday's fixture in Ennis will be all but assured of a quarter-final berth at least.
Limerick manager Joe Quaid said: 'Next weekend is basically a preliminary quarter-final.
'Whoever wins goes through so the stakes don't get much higher. We suffered a terrible defeat last week against Cork but maybe we took our eye off the ball as well.
'We were never going to beat Cork but since the draw, this is the game we've been focusing on for the past six months.
'We knew we had to win, we didn't care if we won ugly or great. The work-rate out of those girls was just phenomenal, talk about having each other's backs.
'Ciara O'Riordan got a block in late on with her back, they died for each other on the pitch and they are a great bunch.
'We've 15 new girls on the panel this year and for them to achieve that is unreal.
'They train every bit as hard and give as much commitment as the Limerick senior hurlers and a day like today, in front of their supporters, is just fantastic. They got to show the people of Limerick what kind of characters they are.'
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