All Star continues to add to her list of achievements

Irish Times/Vhi Healthcare Sportswoman Award for November: Cora Staunton (Gaelic Football):Her plan all year was to have a long-standing cruciate problem seen to once club and county duties were complete, which leaves you wondering how Cora Staunton would have fared in 2007 if she'd been fully fit.

Defenders up and down the country will wish her well, while fretting about the prospects of marking her in 2008 should she return in improved physical shape.

Last month the Mayo forward won the fifth All Star of her career after a season in which she led her county to National League success, when they beat Galway in the final back in May, and won the Championship's Golden Boot with 4-46 in six games en route to the All-Ireland final, where Mayo were thwarted by the three-in-a-row-winning Cork side.

"People get carried away with the scores I'm getting but a lot of those are frees and it's not just me creating them," she said earlier this season when she stressed Mayo's achievements were a team effort.

No doubt they have been, but Staunton, as much a creator as a scorer these days, so often produces exceptional performances it is inevitable that her name crops up when individual awards are being given out.

Speaking of which . . . November proved to be yet another vintage month for the 25-year-old, this time on the club front.

Carnacon, who lost last year's Vhi Healthcare All-Ireland Club Championship final, won through to this year's decider with an emphatic 3-13 to 0-3 semi-final victory over Ballyboden, who had 11 players with senior Dublin experience in the side.

Despite being marked by two players for much of the game Staunton finished with a tally of 2-9, scoring the first of her goals from 20 yards after she turned and lost both markers and crashed the ball high into the net.

She had much the same impact in the final, where Carnacon, Mayo champions for the last eight years, played Cork's Inch Rovers at Banagher, Co Offaly.

Staunton's tally this time around was 1-11 out of her team's 2-14, which gave them an 11-point margin of victory to take their first All-Ireland title in five years.

In the early stages of the game Cork's All Star full-back Angela Walsh appeared to be getting the better of Staunton, but with 17 minutes gone the Mayowoman won possession 30 yards out, skipped past Walsh and rifled the ball home.

After that it became an exhibition of Staunton's skills - long-range frees, points from every angle, left foot, right foot, the works.

It's a decade and a half since Staunton first turned heads, as a 10-year-old on her school's boy's team, for which, naturally enough, she was a prolific scorer.

She hasn't quite won as many awards as she's scored points and goals since then, but there have been plenty.

Here's another one for the collection: the Irish Times/Vhi Healthcare Sportswoman for November.

January -Marie Breen (Basketball): Captained Glanmire to victory in the Superleague National Cup final, scoring 29 points and being named "Most Valuable Player".

February- Chloe Magee (Badminton): The Donegal teenager helped Ireland to the final of the Helvetia Cup and won the singles and doubles titles at the national championships.

March -Nina Carberry (Horse Racing): Carberry triumphed again at the Cheltenham Festival, winning the Sporting Index Handicap Chase on Heads Onthe Ground.

April -Emma Byrne (Soccer): The Republic of Ireland goalkeeper starred in Arsenal's perfect season when they won every competition they entered, including the Uefa Cup.

May- Lisa and Leona Maguire (Golf): The 12-year-old Cavan twins shared our May award after Leona won the Hermitage Scratch Cup and Lisa reached the semi-finals of the Irish Close.

June -Jessica Kürten (Equestrian Sport): Dropped out of the world top 10 after a quiet start to the year but embarked on a run of form in April that lifted her back to third.

July- Eileen O'Keeffe (Athletics): The hammer thrower broke the 70-metre mark five times at the National Championships and went on to finish sixth at the World Championships in Osaka.

August- Joanne Cuddihy (Athletics): Became the first Irishwoman to run under 51 seconds for 400 metres, doing so at the World Championships.

September- Mary Leacy (Camogie) and Valerie Mulcahy (Gaelic Football): Leacy captained Wexford to their first camogie senior All-Ireland title in 32 years while the ever-prolific Mulcahy helped Cork to a football three-in-a-row.

October- Katie Taylor (Boxing): The 21-year-old Bray fighter won her third successive European Championship title in Denmark.

Each sportswoman is eligible for just one monthly award in 2007 but her achievements through the year will be taken into account by the judges when the decision on the overall winner is made.