Let them express themselves!

IN ALL FAIRNESS

Tipperary might not have been part of All-Ireland Camogie finals day for 2025 at Croke Park last Sunday, well that’s not quite true as they were present in the form of this year’s jubilee team, marking 25 years of their 2000 senior success when they defeated Cork in the final, a team that included a fourteen-year-old Claire Grogan.

The rules have changed in the intervening years where a player that young wouldn’t be allowed play at adult level, but even if they were, if the physicality of Sunday’ senior final is anything to go by, it would be unsafe to do so nowadays.

There were many talking points from Galway’s victory over Cork which denied the rebels a three-in-a-row; including the after-match reaction from both camps, Galway to being written off in advance by the national media (I thought teams and managers weren’t bothered by what the media said), and Cork on the big decisions that went against them, including the red card for Hannah Looney, and the late winning free awarded to Galway.

No publicity is bad publicity and that in the couple of days after the game, people are still talking about it, including myself in what is largely a Tipperary focused column, can only be a good thing.

However, it was the quality of the game that impressed me the most. There are many reasons why people don’t attend camogie and ladies football games in the same numbers as they do for the male equivalents, and one of them is the pace of play. Ladies’ games are slower, that’s just the reality of genetics, but if you can bridge that gap in terms of pace of play as much as possible between the men’s and ladies’ games, people will attend and watch in greater numbers.

Megaphone diplomacy by Camogie Association President Brian Molloy last week, almost imploring those that were so vociferous in wanting change over the skorts issue a couple of months ago, to stand up for the ladies in a different way and put their bums on seats at Croke Park last Sunday, was never going to work, in fact you turn people off going with talk like that. People will go if they are going to be entertained, and while the junior and intermediate finals weren’t great spectacles, but the best was left until last as Cork and Galway played out a gripping senior decider.

It is only in recent years that more physicality was allowed in camogie after thesenior final in the middle of the last decade had turned into free-fests and were virtually unwatchable, largely because of the rules which prevented physical contact to a large extent.

That small change in terms of allowing greater physicality was a step in the right direction, but on Sunday, and while referee Justin Heffernan has gotten a lot of criticism for the decisions he did or didn’t make, that he allowed the players to play with physicality to a level we haven’t seen in camogie before, and for that he deserves great credit, even if the refereeing assessors might not be in agreement.

Camogie players are putting in the same level of preparation as their hurling counterparts, particularly in terms of strength & conditioning, and the rules should be adjusted to allow for the extra strength they now have physically. It would allow them to show their full range of skills, and as we saw on Sunday, we got an enthralling contest.

More games with added intensity will make the game more appealing for those to attend on a more regular basis, and that can only be a good thing.

Back to the Future

It was disappointing to see the Munster Council, last week, vote to restore seeding for the inter-county senior football championship, starting in 2026 for a three year period.

Let’s call it what it is, a revenue generating decision by the provincial body. The change will see the two highest ranking teams from the Allianz League placed on opposite sides of the semi-final draw. For the 2026 Munster Senior Football Championship, Kerry and Cork, as the two highest ranking Munster teams in the 2025 Allianz League, will be placed on opposite sides of the draw.

Isn’t that convenient that it benefits Kerry and Cork, and increases the possibility of a first Munster Final between the sides since 2021. The last four finals, three involving Clare and one with Limerick, weren’t great contests against Kerry, and didn’t draw big crowds, but they reached the finals on merit.

Cork have done little over the last decade or more to deserve such a leg up. The ideal scenario when the draw is made later this year is Cork to be drawn against either Limerick or Clare, the two sides greatly impacted by the change as the closest challengers to the rebels at the moment. In that scenario, were Cork to lose, Munster Council would be left with egg on their face for trying to manufacture a final pairing for financial and promotional purposes.