TIPPERARY LADIES FOOTBALL sensation Aishling Moloney has linked up with the Premier county’s camogie side for the 2020 All-Ireland senior championship.
This comes as a huge boost to the Premier county, who opened their campaign with a 0-20 to 1-8 win over Clare in Group 3 this afternoon.
A dual star with her club Cahir through the years, Moloney had never played senior inter-county camogie until today — and enjoyed her debut right up to receiving a straight red card in the second half.
After joining Bill Mulaney’s 30-strong panel for training in recent weeks, the 2019 LGFA Intermediate Player of the Year featured from the throw-in at The Ragg despite wearing the number 27 jersey.
Starting in midfield, Moloney had a scintillating first half, scoring 0-3 and assisting several other efforts. After bagging the game’s opening point, she popped up with a monster point from her own ’45.
From miles downtown 🔨
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) October 18, 2020
On her debut for the Tipperary senior camogie team, dual star Aishling Moloney shows her undoubted class with a point from her own 45 😱
What a talent 👏 pic.twitter.com/o1CbCOakpP
While she impressed throughout, the Cahir dual star’s first outing ended at the second-half water break as she was shown a straight red card for what was deemed as off-the-ball altercation.
Cáit Devane was another to to excel, and top-score, for Tipp, who rattled off 10 unanswered points at one stage in the first half before Clare brought it back to 0-13 to 0-4 at the break.
But inter-county camogie newcomer Moloney — who was certainly relishing the challenge beforehand — was undoubtedly the player to catch the headlines today.
“I got involved this year, I suppose it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a few years,” as she recently told The42 of her new venture.
Just with everything, the year that it is with Covid and all, I said that I’d give it a shot. It’s a new challenge for me. It’s a different game to football, and there’s a lot of things that I have to learn now.
“I’ve never, ever played county camogie competitively before. I just saw it as a challenge for myself, just something different away from football as well. It’s something I’m going to look forward to now.
“I’ve never, ever, as I said, played it competitively. I’m just looking forward to the whole challenge of it, the different scene and stuff like that. I said I’d give it a shot.”
Dublin are Tipp’s other opponents in Group 3, where both the winner and runner-up will progress to quarter-finals.
On the football scene, Shane Ronayne’s All-Ireland winning Tipperary side have been pitted against Galway and Monaghan in Group 2 of the All-Ireland championship. The Tribe, 2019 All-Ireland senior finalists, are first up for the newly-promoted intermediate winners on the weekend of 31 October/1 November. The group winners prevail to semi-finals.
And after a turbulent few weeks on the club scene with Cahir between both codes, Moloney is gearing up for another hectic period at inter-county level, with clubmate Roisin Howard also involved in the camogie set-up following their Tipp senior football title victory.
“Look, I suppose it kind of comes with being a dual player,” Moloney, who, in recent times, has been linked with a move to the Australian Football League Women’s [AFLW], added.
“The only thing is is the communication that occurs between both management teams, they’re very good to accommodate on both sides. Communication is all it all boils down to; someone picking up the phone and ringing and appreciating that you had training and not making you do that extra set of runs.
“It’s all about picking up the phone and a bit of communication between the two, so player welfare issues don’t come to a height.”
Aussie Rules star and fellow dual player Orla O’Dwyer also played today and contributed on the scoresheet, with several Drom-Inch players called up to Mullaney’s panel after their county title success.
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