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Irish Times
21 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Galway v Cork camogie All-Ireland final: real bite and aggression, and fireworks that didn't end at the final whistle
The best drama was left until last. The All-Ireland camogie final delivered fireworks to ensure the senior intercounty season went out with a bang. Galway broke Cork's three-in-a-row ambitions with a sublime free by captain Carrie Dolan in the second minute of injury time. It was an All-Ireland camogie final for the ages – a game played with real bite and aggression. There was a red card, a missed penalty, a levelling goal in the final minute, and a match-winning free in injury time. Phew. But the fireworks didn't end at the final whistle either. In his press conference afterwards, Cork manager Ger Manley was hugely critical of some decisions made by referee Justin Heffernan, including the free won by Dolan in the 62nd minute. READ MORE 'I thought a few things went against us. The sending off was very harsh, I thought it was just physical contact,' he said. 'But I thought Justin had a shocking game as a referee. The last one, the one that won the game, was a dive. Look, Galway deserved it, I'm not taking away from them, they had huge hunger, huge everything. 'I was so proud of our girls because the second half was unbelievable. I thought we were the better team in the second half. Small things win matches. Just very disappointed.' Hannah Looney was sent off in first-half injury time after reacting to getting barged in the back by Dolan. Manley also took issue with Caoimhe Kelly's 29th-minute point after the Galway forward had pushed Cork goalkeeper Amy Lee in the back during the build-up to the score. Referee Justin Heffernan imposes a yellow card on Laura Hayes of Cork in the All-Ireland senior camogie championship final against Galway at Croke Park. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho 'To give Galway their credit, I thought they were street-smart. But the decisions that went against us were very disappointing,' he continued. 'It's not sour grapes really, I just thought the referee had a very poor match. I don't like knocking refs but I thought he had a very poor game. I know it's a tough game but some of the decisions that went against us – it seemed to be one rule for one team and another rule for the next. 'We're not a dirty team and neither are Galway really, they're physical. But Amy Lee, we all saw it on the big screen, the push in the back. We were beaten by a point. 'In a tight game like that, small things win matches. Anyone who saw the push on Amy, we'd nearly need to be looking for VAR. If that was in a soccer match, it would have been cancelled out.' Manley also revealed that Amy O'Connor had suffered a hamstring tear leading up to the game and played through the pain barrier on Sunday. But the pain of last year's defeat was a significant factor in driving Galway to victory this season. The Tribeswomen lost the 2024 All-Ireland final to Cork by three points and they were defeated by 11 points in this year's league decider. But Galway manager Cathal Murray – who has now led the county to three All-Ireland titles (2019, 2021, 2025) – says some good old-fashioned 'everybody was writing us off' motivation helped stir the blood. 'There is huge hurt in our camp from last year,' admitted Murray. Galway manager Cathal Murray celebrates with Mairead Dillion after the game. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho 'We were written off completely [ahead of this game]. The Irish Examiner yesterday, any Galway person or player reading that – our player rating – go back and read and it is absolutely f**king insulting. 'I thought it was the biggest insult ever. But that is coming out for the last week, two weeks; we were given no chance. 'I know the league, we were poor in the league final, there's no doubt about that, but we probably got to the league final because other teams probably didn't do their job. 'We were never really going at full pelt, we won two or three of our games by just a point or two. We probably didn't have the work done, that was down to ourselves as management; there were different things in the camp that weren't in place in time.' Murray added that he had told the players after last year's final defeat that he was stepping down, but ultimately he resolved to stick around for 2025. 'Maybe unfinished business. When we look back on it, as management, we felt we got an awful lot right. There's always just that regret that it just wasn't the right time to walk away. Obviously, we're proved right now. 'But to be honest with you, at times this year, in January, February, I said, 'Oh Jesus, why the f*ck did I stay going?' Especially after the league final. I mean, to be honest with you, management-wise, we were terrible in the league final. We were shocking. And we weren't much better on the field either. 'But, you know, it wasn't a typical Galway performance, to be honest with you, and in fairness, for us, I think the best thing we did is we drew a line through it. We didn't even look back on it. We drew a line through it, and we said, we're going to concentrate on the Dublin game now in the championship.'
BreakingNews.ie
a day ago
- Sport
- BreakingNews.ie
All-Ireland Camogie Final: Galway beat Cork to win first title since 2021
Galway have beaten Cork in the All-Ireland Camogie Final at Croke Park to claim their first title since 2021. There was only one point separating the sides after the final whistle, with Cork on 1-13 and Galway on 1-14. Advertisement It's the county's fifth ever title, and the Tribeswomen prevented Cork from claiming three titles in a row. Carrie Dolan nailed a free from near the touchline to put Galway in front before the end, scoring her seventh point of the match. Orlaith Cahalane scored Cork's goal in the 60th minute, while Galway's goal came from Mairead Dillon after 14 minutes. Cork played the majority of the game with 14 players after a straight red card for Hannah Looney. FULL TIME in the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship An incredible battle comes to an end at Croke Park! Cork 1-13 v Galway 1-14 🌟 Congratulations to Galway the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Champions! 🌟 A day of passion, pride and unforgettable… — The Camogie Association (@OfficialCamogie) August 10, 2025
Irish Times
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Offaly return to senior ranks with All-Ireland intermediate final win over Kerry
All-Ireland intermediate camogie final: Offaly 0-14 Kerry 0-11 The tension of an All-Ireland final was evident in what was a defensive and error-ridden battle between Offaly and Kerry , but on a day when an array of forwards that have illuminated the intermediate championship so far were largely kept under lock and key by their markers, Grace Teehan brought the perfect mix of talent and tenacity to drive the Midlanders back up to the senior ranks. Teehan registered four points from play and earned three converted frees, producing her biggest moments in the closing stages when all others seemed to have lost the ability to find the target in the face of suffocating defensive play. Had Offaly let it slip, they would have been haunted by their tally of 13 wides and another handful of shots dropped short, though Kerry will look back at the game's most clear-cut goal chance midway through the second half as their sliding doors moment. Jackie Horgan's seismic battle with Amy Byrne was one of the defining individual contests throughout the game and the Kingdom stalwart finally shook off the shackles of her Faithful follower before whipping a shot off her left from 12 metres out. READ MORE Emer Reynolds, who has made the Offaly custodian position her own since getting a chance against Westmeath midway through the summer, got a strong block and then reacted sharply to put off Amy O'Sullivan from knocking the sliotar into the net from a few metres out. Offaly's Sharon Shanahan and Aoife Hoctor celebrate after the final whistle. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho Ellen O'Donoghue took a point from the loose ball that followed but it was Kerry's best chance to take a lead. Instead they were always that point or two adrift, even if Offaly couldn't relax until captain Orlagh Phelan collected the long, hopeful Kerry delivery in the sixth minute of stoppage time, the last action before the final whistle. For the opening six minutes, Offaly's attack looked every bit like the side that scored 12-71 in five games up to the final. Clodagh Leahy split the uprights from under the Hogan Stand on the very first attack and difficult positions were to prove no obstacle for her as she also found the target with two frees, one from each touchline. A Patrice Diggin reply was quickly followed by Mairéad Teehan emerging out of heavy traffic at centre forward to split the uprights, but Kerry stemmed the bleeding from there, aided by Offaly missing the target with their next three attempts. Diggin, Caoimhe Spillane and Niamh Leen got around the breaks on the Offaly puckout and the decision to play just two inside forwards with O'Donoghue coming back to the midfield sector added to Kerry's edge in that crucial battle. Jackie Horgan exploited the space that was left close to goal by getting in to register one point of her own and win two frees converted by Diggin. Kerry's Shannon Collins with Offaly's Megan King and Amy Byrne. Photograph: Tom O'Hanlon/Inpho By the time Leahy struck Offaly's next point from a 45 the momentum had been stripped from the Midlanders' attack and it was Kerry who continued to enjoy more primary possession, even if they struggled to convert at the other end. Two superb Grace Teehan points and another long-range effort from Ellen Regan ensured Offaly held the narrowest of leads at the break, though Amy Byrne and Róisín Kinsella both had to come up with big defensive plays to prevent Amy O'Sullivan and Kate Lynch from adding further scores. The defensive dominance at both ends was turned after half-time when the first eight minutes passed without a score. Aoife Fitzgerald came up with a vital save to parry Mairéad Teehan's goal attempt and Diggin duly levelled the game from a 45 a minute later, but as was the case so many times during this game, when Offaly's need was greatest, Grace Teehan came up with a vital score. A mere 0-2 apiece was added to the scoreboard over the next 17 minutes, but the last five minutes again belonged to Teehan as she fired over two points either side of winning a free that Clodagh Leahy pointed to see Offaly home. OFFALY: E Reynolds; A Liffey, A Byrne, M King; E Regan (0-1), R Kinsella, O Phelan; C Cleary, S Shanahan; F Dooley, M Teehan (0-1), G Teehan (0-5, 1f); C Leahy (0-7, 4f, 1′45), C Maher, K Pilkington. Subs: F Mulrooney for Maher (33 mins), C Fogarty for King (47), O Kilmartin for Pilkington (50), K Kennedy for Liffey (58), C O'Donovan for Cleary (60). KERRY: A Fitzgerald; M Costello, S Murphy, R McCarthy; R Quinn, N Leen, A Behan; P Diggin (0-8, 6f, 1′45), C Spillane; AM Leen, K Lynch (0-1), R O'Connor; E O'Donoghue (0-1), J Horgan (0-1), A O'Sullivan. Subs: S Collins for AM Leen (h-t), K Ryan for O'Sullivan (50 mins), E Conway for O'Donoghue (60). Referee: D O'Callaghan (Limerick).
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
‘It's so brilliant to see them hopping off each other': How camogie moved the goalposts
After the 2018 All-Ireland final, camogie had reached a crisis point and a tipping point. For the second year in a row the two outstanding teams in the championship had produced an insufferable spectacle, polluted with fouls and frees and flooded defences. Until then, only two finals in history had failed to produce a goal but Cork and Kilkenny had managed it in successive years. It wouldn't have come as a surprise to either of them because that was how they had set up: any other outcome would have been a systems failure. Cork and Kilkenny had goaded each other into a siege mentality. The referee, though, shouldered a disproportionate share of the blame. Thirty-six frees had been awarded. Only 27 points were scored and just nine had come from play. For scrupulously applying the rules, Eamon Cassidy was vilified. 'I met John Power from Callan after it [the former Kilkenny hurler] and he said he was never going to another camogie match,' says Ann Downey, who managed Kilkenny in those finals and won 12 All-Irelands in a Hall of Fame career. READ MORE 'He said he couldn't stick it. There were an awful lot of people not happy with the whole stop-start nature of it. The rules had to change – particularly after that game.' [ From the archive: Glory days of blazing camogie finals well and truly over Opens in new window ] Camogie's past and whatever camogie's future might look like had reached an impasse. The game had evolved beyond the competence of its rule book. Strength and conditioning programmes had become the norm for all serious teams and yet camogie's rules were hostile to physical contact. It was wedded to the charade that physical contact could be filtered in some way or diluted. 'The camogie rules had never made any sense, in any era, in any context,' says Eimear Ryan, award-winning author of The Grass Ceiling and former Tipperary player. 'You're trying to put shackles on a game that is by nature physical and free-flowing. I think it was just this well-intentioned, but kind of patronising, idea in the first place to come up with compromise camogie rules. I'm so glad in this more progressive age that they've essentially just made it the same as hurling.' [ Eimear Ryan: 'I thought that there was some trick to writing a novel' Opens in new window ] Camogie has a reputation for being conservative and institutionally opposed to change. In the flare-up over the introduction of shorts earlier this year, the association's leadership, at all levels, was excoriated for being out of touch with its players. In that case, they eventually bowed to irresistible pressure. Kilkenny's Shelly Farrell and Cork's Ashling Thompson in the 2018 All-Ireland final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho But of the four principal games in the Gaelic games family none has changed more profoundly than camogie since the turn of the century. Men's football has just emerged from open-heart surgery, women's football probably needs to see a consultant, hurling has undergone a series of strategic upheavals, but camogie has turned somersaults. Some of that change was open-eyed and deliberate, some of it was environmental. When camogie made the life-changing decision to switch to 15-a-side in 1999 the game was exposed to new horizons and different thinking. It wasn't a blank page, but there were just a few scribbles. 'When camogie was 12-a-side, if you had three or four good players they could dominate the game, but with 15-a-side, a team had to be more balanced,' says Kate Kelly, who won four All-Irelands and nine All Stars in a Wexford career that spanned 20 years. Ann Downey: 'When we were playing, a lot of the players just went out and trained … Now they're all in the gym.' Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho 'It hugely improved the game. It's enhanced it in every way – tactically, and even from a perception point of view. You know, it was a full-sized pitch, you weren't using two small goals, that, realistically, only under-12s were using. It's hard to fathom now that we played 12-a-side.' What it added to the game immediately was a greater premium on athleticism. Once camogie embraced that new imperative the ceiling kept rising. How fast? How strong? 'When we were playing,' says Downey, 'a lot of the players just went out and trained. Angela [Ann's sister] and myself did a good bit in the gym all right, but I couldn't say there were another two or three on the Kilkenny panel that were doing the same. Now they're all in the gym.' Different strands coalesced. When the game was 12-a-side, the ball moved more freely, and often on the ground. But on a bigger pitch, and with fitter players, carrying the ball gained more currency. The game had a different beat: it had made the evolutionary jump from Ska to Mod. 'I don't know whether I should say it got more professional or it got more serious,' says Kelly, 'but in terms of culture, players became more conscious of all the elements that improved their game.' Saoirse McCarthy of Cork during last month's All-Ireland semi-final against Waterford at Nowlan Park. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho When camogie went 15-a-side, it also reduced the tariff on imports from hurling. Ideas were traded through a frictionless border. 'The game became a lot more tactical,' says Ryan. 'Everything that has happened in hurling over the last 20 years has just seamlessly transitioned over to camogie because camogie teams are generally coached by recently retired hurlers.' Historically, camogie had resisted being categorised as a female version of hurling. It had a distinctive culture and identity and didn't need to be cross-referenced with its sibling. For a long time, it was much easier to hold that line. On the Camogie Association website about 10 years ago they listed all the differences between both games; the counting stopped at 41. Some of the differences were administrative or technical, but some of them were fundamental to how the games were played. The All-Ireland semi-finals in Nowlan Park last month were perfect illustrations of the modern game: accomplished and tactical and exceptionally physical 'The impression I would have is that most players conflate camogie and hurling as the same thing,' says Ryan. 'They don't see camogie as a distinct, separate sport. 'You go on a kind of a journey as a player. I remember as a kid being almost, like, offended by the rules. You could catch it three times in possession in camogie – that was another rule difference – and you could drop the hurley. I thought these were awful rules and I refused to use them as a young player. What emerged from the rubble of the 2017 and 2018 All-Ireland finals was an appetite for rule change. Photograph: Donall Farmer/Inpho 'And then in my 20s, when I was playing in the inside forward line, I actually realised it was very handy to drop the hurl and handpass a goal and I did that a lot.' Handpassing a goal is no longer allowed in camogie. Neither is catching the ball three times or dropping the hurley. What emerged from the rubble of the 2017 and 2018 All-Ireland finals was an appetite for rule change. The players were up in arms about how contact was governed. The impetus for reform came from them. The Camogie Association rowed with the tide. At the beginning of 2019 the Women's Gaelic Players' Association assembled a group of its members to assess what needed to be addressed and later that year the Camogie Association staged a 'feedback forum' in Croke Park. After that, a Rules Revision Work Group was established under the leadership of the former GAA president Liam O'Neill. As part of their due diligence they reached out to camogie's general membership with a survey that generated 1,500 responses. The ultimate outcome was a suite of experimental rules that were rolled out for the 2020 season and voted into the rule book in the spring of the following year. Some of them – like outlawing the hand-passed goal and no longer allowing three players to face a penalty – aligned camogie with changes that had already been made in hurling. But there were innovations too. A free awarded inside the defensive 45 can now be taken from the hand by the player who has been fouled – even though it is not often seen in practice. When a ball goes wide there is also provision in the rules for a quick puck-out, something that, in hurling, is still at the referee's discretion. Galway's Sarah Healy is tackled by Jean Kelly and Karen Kennedy of Tipperary in July's semi-final. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho Camogie, though, still balked at a full-on shoulder charge. Instead, it came up with a fudge: a side-on tackle, 'with minimal force once [the player] is making a reasonable effort to gain possession. Contact must not be made in an aggressive or cynical manner'. In reality, though, this gave referees more latitude to tolerate harder tackling and it gave players more licence. In a see-saw graph, free counts dropped as contests for the ball became more intense. There are still some squeamish referees on the circuit, or those who are more committed to old customs and practices. But matches between elite teams are no longer strangled by a referee's whistle. The All-Ireland semi-finals in Nowlan Park last month were perfect illustrations of the modern game: accomplished and tactical and exceptionally physical. 'The rule changes have been huge and so refreshing to see,' says Ryan. 'The girls nowadays are so strong – you can see it in them. They're S&Ced to within an inch of their lives. It's so brilliant to see them hopping off each other.' How much has the game changed? When Downey started playing for Kilkenny in the 1970s, there were two crossbars in camogie – one conventional crossbar and another at the top of the uprights. To score a point, the ball had to pass between both crossbars. The second crossbar survived until 1979. Just 20 years later they moved the goalposts again. And you thought camogie had no mind for change.
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- Sport
- BreakingNews.ie
Orlagh Phelan on captaining Offaly in All-Ireland final at just 20 years old
Captaining your county in an All-Ireland final would be an honour for any player, but one Offaly's Orlagh Phelan gets to experience at just 20 years old. Part of a young team who haven't looked back since winning Division 2A, Offaly have gone one step further since exiting at the semi-final stages last season. Advertisement Leading Offaly against Kerry in the All-Ireland Intermediate camogie final will be Phelan, who has taken the responsibility of captain in her stride this season. "I don't dwell on it too much. I am the same as everybody else. "I have to show up for training, play my best to get on the first 15 and want to win as well. "You have your different roles, you have to lead in training, lead in how you approach things, lead on and off the field. Advertisement "We are a group of girls who want to win, and I just look after that. It has been a fantastic honour, but I just make sure I work as hard as everyone else." After coming so close the the Intermediate final last season, Offaly spent no time licking their wounds, with silverware captured early in their league success. Now, having gone one step further and 60 minutes away from becoming All-Ireland champions, the Offaly defender says the hurt from last season has been motivation for the team. "We always knew at the back of our minds that we are just one step away. Advertisement "Starting the year off with the league final win, that was brilliant. It motivated us and gave us that confidence as well. "Throughout the year, it was about having that confidence in ourselves, because we knew we were well able for it." It has not been an easy few years for Offaly camogie, who perhaps has not lived up to its potential in recent years. After relegation to Intermediate back in 2023 and dropping down to the third tier of the league, the tide looks to be turning. For Phelan and this young group of players, testing themselves against the best is a huge motivation ahead of Sunday's final. "Senior camogie is where you want to be playing, that is where the highest standards are. "When you are playing senior, you are playing against the best counties, you are playing against the best players, so that is where everyone want to play. "That is where you learn, that is where you improve."
