RESILIENCE AND EXPERIENCE were the key ingredients that saw Cork crowned TG4 All-Ireland ladies senior football champions for an eighth time in nine seasons.
That was the verdict of team manager Eamonn Ryan following Sunday’s 1-10 to 1-9 victory against Monaghan at Croke Park.
Valerie Mulcahy’s late free secured the three-in-a-row for the Rebelettes, who bounced back from losing twice to Kerry in the Munster championship to retain the Brendan Martin Cup.
And with the game was in the balance in those closing minutes, Ryan suspects that a younger team may not have had the wherewithal to close it out.
But he argued: “And you could also say that the younger team (Monaghan) should have won it.
“Because the day was right, the field is big, they had all the conditions and the supposed advantages.“But that’s probably a testament to the resilience of our gang. They’re unbelievable. They’re four or five years on average older than the other team.”
Ryan believes that Sunday’s nail-biting decider was Cork’s season as a microcosm.
He explained: “There was a time there in the match when we kicked some appalling wides and then there was a time when we came along and played some brilliant stuff. That was a lot like out year”
And Ryan held his hands up as he attempted to explain why Cork had suffered two provincial championship defeats against their neighbours.
He admitted: “That might be my fault because I trained them a bit hard and I think I might have been the cause of the defeats to Kerry.
“On reflection, I was looking back through my book and I think they hadn’t enough rest. Then we were haunted to get out of the Armagh match and after it I knew we would beat Kerry (All-Ireland semi-final) in Thurles. I knew we had our act together by then.”
In between the Armagh and Dublin games, Cork produced some of their most breathtaking football during Ryan’s tenure as they came from nine points down to blitz the Sky Blues with a run of 1-10 without reply.
Once again, when Cork’s backs were against the wall, they responded with a remarkable display of character to rescue what appeared to be a lost cause.
And Ryan reflected: “I think the last 20 minutes against Dublin changed out season. Certainly we wouldn’t take the credit for it on the line. It may have been that the accumulated training from earlier had kicked in.
“But it was almost as if somebody upstairs had said, ‘Here now lads, you’d want to wake up or you are gone forever.’ Which technically, I’d say we probably would have been. And something just clicked and we were going away from Dublin by the end.”
