BY ROUGHLY 3PM this Sunday afternoon, one of the top three All-Ireland contenders in the senior camogie championship will be eliminated from the race.
More specifically, it will be one of the two sides who contested last year’s All-Ireland final, and they will be dropping out at the quarter-final stage. Kilkenny or Cork? The defending champions and the 2018 winners will renew their rivalry as part of a double-header with the All-Ireland hurling semi-final between Clare and Kilkenny.
Galway, the last of those three O’Duffy Cup candidates, are already through to the semi-finals along with Waterford.
The Cats may have prevailed in last year’s meeting with Cork in the Croke Park showpiece, but Cork bit back in the league earlier this year. Matthew Twomey’s side clocked a hefty 0-23 to win by ten points in Nowlan Park. Experienced forward Amy O’Connor knocked over five points as ten different scorers contributed to Cork’s tally.
That result booked Cork a place in the league final, but for the second year in-a-row, they fell short against Galway.
Galway’s hoodoo over Cork continued in the group stages of the All-Ireland championship as Siobhán McGrath rattled in a 55th minute goal to secure the spoils. Cork revived their campaign with a big win against Down but went into their final Group 1 game against Munster finalists Clare needing at least a draw to assure their progression to the quarter-finals.
They played that fixture in the shadow of yet another dual-player fixture clash which affected four members of the Cork ladies football and camogie squads. No resolution could be found to allow the players fulfill both fixtures, meaning that the players in question were forced to choose which team that would be reporting for duty with.
As it turned out, Hannah Looney played for their footballers in their championship clash with Tipperary, while Libby Coppinger, and Aoife Healy lined out for the camogie team. Orlaith Cahalane is the fourth of the dual-player pack but she was injured for those ties. The trio of dual-players proved sufficient for the Cork camógs as they stormed to a 3-19 to 0-8 victory over Clare to keep their season going.
And now Cork must revisit another hex against Kilkenny. The record between the two sides may favour the Leinster side, but Kilkenny have been in mixed form of late. They come into this quarter-final with just one win over Dublin while Tipperary and Wexford held the champions to a draw.
The shock Wexford result came first, as Colin Sunderland’s side struck for a late 1-4 — 1-1 in stoppage time — to reign in Brian Dowling’s outfit. The Tipperary draw followed on Sunday to see the Premier County advance to their quarter-final against Antrim as Group 2 winners. That game will precede the hurling semi-final between Galway and Limerick on Saturday.
Kilkenny take second place in Group 2. The wobbles that led them to this point won’t be far from the minds of the Kilkenny players when Cork come thundering into Croke Park seeking vengeance.
Neither Kilkenny nor Cork have been struck by any major retirements in 2023, while Kellyann Doyle is back in the mainline with the Cats after she was ruled out with a cruciate injury last year. Aoife Doyle has also recovered from the same injury, coming on against Tipperary in the early stages of the second half.
Experienced campaigners Grace Walsh, Claire Phelan, Denise Gaule, and Katie Power are still important parts of the Kilkenny engine room too.
Amy O’Connor continues to be the chief scoring assassin for Cork. She helped herself to 1-9 against Clare, hitting seven frees as part of that. O’Connor is supported by a cast of championship regulars including the Mackey sisters Katrina and Pamela and Chloe Sigerson.
With both camogie quarter-finals doubling up with the hurling semi-finals, it’s likely that the ongoing protest for equality is set for its biggest audience yet. Following a press conference held by the GPA last month, senior inter-county ladies and camogie squads expressed their intention to play out the rest of this championship under protest.
Their actions are based on their frustrations towards the LGFA and Camogie Association regarding player welfare and requests for a charter for female players. Inter-county sides have followed through on that intention through a series of gestures. Last weekend, teams wore t-shirts bearing the words #United For Equality during their warm-ups before changing into their county strips ahead of throw-in.
Players from @ClareCamogie and @CorkCamogie stand #UnitedForEquality.
— GPA (@gaelicplayers) July 2, 2023
Asking for a minimum standards squad charter to be implemented for all players @OfficialCamogie @LadiesFootball @officialgaa pic.twitter.com/5ChKJecjsc
The protest is surely set for another evolution in Croke Park. But regardless of external matters surrounding the event, Cork and Kilkenny will certainly be preparing to add another intriguing chapter to their rivalry this weekend.
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