Kilkenny end famine in Croke Park thriller

Some of this Kilkenny panel weren't even born in 1994, but the year had hung over them like a dirty grey cloud. While Cork had feasted on 10 senior All-Ireland titles since then, Kilkenny had endured a 22-year famine since that day the legendary Ann Downey captained her county to victory over Wexford.

If the current crop of players, now managed by Downey, had heard mention of 1994 once in the build-up, they'd heard it 1,994 times. "People were talking about it alright," said Shelly Farrell, "but you wouldn't be paying much attention to it."

Well, now 1994 can be put to bed, just another date in the county’s sporting history, the one that precedes the latest engraving on the O’Duffy Cup: “2016: Kilkenny.”

When the final whistle blew, a euphoric Downey celebrated her charges’ 1-13 to 1-9 triumph over the three-in-a-row seeking Cork as joyously as she did any of the 12 All-Ireland winners’ medals she collected during her illustrious playing career.

Six times they’d been back to Croke Park since 1994, six times they’d lost, three times to Cork. Hurt banished.

The game attracted the fifth biggest crowd to attend an All-Ireland camogie final since the first back in 1932. The Camogie Association had hoped to top the 20,000 mark for the first time since Kilkenny and Cork met in 2009, but with the two counties contesting both the senior and intermediate finals, they weren't overly hopeful.

Lower deck

When “20,037” appeared on the big screen, then, a roar went up from the lower deck of the Hogan Stand, the one part of the stadium that was heavily populated. Still, 62,000 empty seats, the annual sight of the Artane Boys Band avoiding marching under the empty Cusack Stand and Hill 16 during the pre-match parade a reminder that there’s a long way to go. But, 20,037 is a start.

Teams out. Handshakes. Cork's Hannah Looney and Kilkenny's Collette Dormer's shouldering and shoving and pushing suggesting they were a bit fired up for the tussle ahead.

Mercifully, Michael D had take his seat by then, otherwise he could have been engulfed.

Match time and Kilkenny opened with an energy, intensity and workrate that was dazzling. Most impressively, they maintained it from the first whistle to the last. They never let up, Cork denied time and space, harried and hassled from the off, Kilkenny hunting them down in packs.

They brought their smarts, too. The steel running through the spine of this Cork side is like no other, not least when the imperious Gemma O’Connor patrols in front of the full-back line to swat away any potential pesky danger. Kilkenny? They just bypassed the steel, much of their most effective work done down the wings.

There were seven points from Denise Gaule, deadly as ever from frees, and four from player-of-the-match Julie Ann Malone, who contributed a little bit of everything to her team's success, emerging endlessly from rucks in possession.

A week ago her brother Michael left Croke Park with that bitter taste of defeat. This, then, was a decidedly happier day for the Malone clan.

A late Cork goal, reducing the deficit to four points, and every Kilkenny set of eyes in the Hogan turned to the clock. They’d been done by Cork before in the dying moments, but this time the clock was on their side.

“It’s about time the girls were bringing something back to Kilkenny, the lads were doing it for long enough,” said Farrell, scorer of the exquisite second-half goal that sent her team on their way to their triumph.

And the girls did it twice, Kilkenny beating Cork in the intermediate final too.

As the banner promised, “You’re going to hear us roar when O’Duffy and McGrath are back by the Nore.”

And as another put it, “Cats Supreme, Camogie Queens.”

A very lovely day. Heading back in to town, you spot a parked coach literally hopping. On board? Carlow folk, celebrating their winning of the All-Ireland junior title, 4-10 to 2-07 over Armagh, on their first ever visit to Croke Park.

A memorable day, then, for the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny.