Camogie’s time to shine

IN ALL FAIRNESS

When camogie makes the national sporting spotlight, it has generally been for the wrong reasons but this week it is enjoying somewhat of a high after a successful conclusion to its All-Ireland Championships on Sunday.

A crowd of 33,419 was a record for All-Ireland Camogie Final day on its own as there were bigger attendances when they were billed with the under 21 All-Ireland Hurling Finals from 2006 to 2009.

This is on top of a record semi-final attendance of over ten thousand for the Semple Stadium double-bill last month, while also usurping the Ladies Football final for a greater attendance for the first time.

This year’s camogie finals were aided by the fact they had teams spread from right around the country, including three from Ulster in junior finalists Armagh and Cavan, as well as intermediate champions Antrim who got the better of Laois. It also helped that the senior final had a great rivalry with Cork and Galway meeting for the third year in a row, both having won one each, with the 2025 clash one of the best games of camogie ever played with the greater physicality allowed in recent years leading to games being played at a greater pace and the players able to show their full range of skills.

What Cork and Galway put on show only reiterated the level Tipperary still have to get to, not just to reach a final, but also to win one. The pace and athleticism of the two leading counties at the moment is on a different level and the fear is that Cork could be set for a period of dominance as they managed to win this All-Ireland with no fewer than fourteen players having retired or stepped away from the panel prior to this season. If some come back, what a panel they could have in the medium term!

In a county with such a tradition of hurling, that Tipperary have just five senior All-Ireland titles to their name, essentially won by the same group of players in a six year span between 1999 and 2004, is a little perplexing. There are more girls, more teams, and more clubs playing camogie in this county than ever before but yet the gap to the likes of Cork and Galway isn’t getting any closer it would seem, they already having an advantage in greater playing numbers with their higher populations and longer tradition.

Tipperary Camogie is as well run as it has ever been, from the promotion of its games to a structured games schedule for all ages, to developing players at academy level, but it is still falling short at the very highest level, more often than not. It begs the question is there something that Tipperary could be doing to create a distinct advantage such as when Michael Cleary took the reins of the senior team midway through the 1999 campaign and turned their fortunes around, with 2001 captain Emily Hayden saying in advance of their jubilee celebrations last Sunday, that what set them apart at that time was they were trained like a hurling team rather than a camogie team.

In 2022, Tipperary Camogie linked up with Setanta College in Thurles with the delivery of long-term development programmes for players from U14 to Senior level, ensuring that camogie players within the county are provided with an equal level of athletic development support and facilities as their male counterparts in Tipperary GAA who have a similar partnership.

A lot is being done right but as Tipperary found out this year with semi-final defeats at minor, under 23 and senior level, the final step on the ladder is the hardest to take and the only thing to do it be like Mayo and keep coming back and finding those extra inches to bridge the gap, and for Tipperary, it is also finding elite forwards who can make scoring look easy as the likes of Sorcha McCartan and Orlaith Cahalane do for Cork. They don’t come on trees though.

The modern game of working the ball through the lines has worked its way into camogie to a certain level of success and will likely improve as players become more comfortable on the ball but could Tipp benefit from a more direct style which suits the players they have. Tipperary’s greatest calling card at the moment is their work-rate and physicality out of possession and maybe getting the ball quicker into the forwards and playing six-up might serve them better.

I’m sure all this and more will be stirring around the mind of manager James Heffernan as he goes into his second season in charge, particularly as he is a novice to the likes of Ger Manley and Cathal Murray who are a long time at this level and found out the hard way what it takes.