Like father, like daughter

Camogie/All-Ireland final: Tom Humphries talks to Ciara Gaynor about the rise and rise of camogie and Tipperary

Ciara Gaynor isn't old, but she has enough years on the clock to allow her to remember the bad times. She jumped to some sort of prominence 11 years ago as a 13-year-old whippersnapper playing minor camogie for Tipp.

She hadn't long finished playing under-12 hurling for Kilruane-McDonagh's and was enjoying life as an under-14 hurler. As the time came to concentrate on camogie, it seemed that if Ciara Gaynor had a future in the game, Tipp camogie probably didn't.

Tomorrow, she plays in her sixth successive All-Ireland final and if her renown is such that she is still introduced in lots of circles as Len Gaynor's daughter, well she doesn't mind. It comes with the territory and that territory has allowed her eclipse her father's total of three All-Irelands. Tomorrow, she goes in search of her fifth winner's medal.

"It's mad really," she says, "coming from nowhere like we did. I know other counties have been in consecutive All-Irelands for a lot longer than six years, but for us coming from Tipp, coming from nowhere, sometimes I think about it and it's unreal."

Tipp's rise has indeed been sensational. They won the national intermediate title in 1997, went senior in 1998 and were unlucky to be beaten in the All-Ireland semi-final of that year. In 1999 it all stepped up a gear again. Michael Cleary and Colm Bonnar came in. The emphasis switched to skills, skills, skills and doing things at speed, speed, speed. They won the first of three All-Irelands in a row. Tipp are there still. Six years on the circuit. Pretty much the same bunch of players, young enough and resilient enough to wait it out at the top of the tree till the wave of kids they have inspired burst through and claim their inheritance.

Gaynor reckons that the arrival of Cleary and Bonnar and the rules changes which made camogie a 15-a-side game were a fortuitous coincidence which gave Tipp a jump on the opposition.

"The way we play, how young we were, I think the 15-a-side game suited us better. At club level it's hard enough. We'd be a small club and putting out 12 strong players was hard. Finding 15 is very hard. With Tipp it suited us and it was the game that Skippy (Cleary) knew. It worked to our advantage."

The belated move to 15-a-side was a belated kiss of life to the sport. Gaynor recognises that standards have improved and the game is beginning to earn some of the respect it deserves. With the shortened pitch and the dinky little goals, camogie often betrayed itself by giving off an air of novelty, sublimely asking spectators not to expect hurling by women to be done well, but to be impressed that it was done at all.

"Playing on the full-length field and using proper goals has made a difference. The game gets a little bit more respect now. It sometimes looked like a bit of a joke playing with the smaller goals."

Gaynor and perhaps half a dozen of her higher-profile team-mates are the nearest thing the sport has had to recognisable stars since the Downey sisters retired. It's taken more than half a decade at the top to achieve the limited level of renown which they have outside the game. Camogie's perennial problem.

"The game does enough and then again it doesn't do enough," she says. "Personally, I don't agree with the chicks with sticks thing at all. I don't know who that's aimed at. Ten, 11, 12-year-old girls or the public in general?

" Last year, Una O'Dwyer lifted the All-Ireland for us and six weeks later she left for Australia. A few Cork and Limerick girls went with her. They travelled around Australia and New Zealand. I think there's a way there of promoting the game, promoting the fact they can play at the highest level and have that independence and strength.

"The idea of fashion or whether we're good-looking women or not, well who cares? It's the skill that matters. The enjoyment. I'd prefer to see DJ Carey do one of his back-handed flicks into the net than see him wear tight Levis. That's the way to promote the game. Some of the skills are as good as the men. Better sometimes, because it's not so physical you can't walk over the player.

"There's nothing sexy about camogie. Same with hurling. Same with football. It's a serious sport. You train for a year. You fight for every ball. It belittles that if people are wondering what you look like in a cocktail dress or if you think that people will only come and watch if you're good looking or look great in a skirt. They certainly wouldn't be coming to watch me, so."

At this point it would be proper to contradict Ciara Gaynor, but instead you check and wonder if you've ever heard a male sportsperson feel the need to make self-deprecating jokes about their looks. Anyway, she's not finished.

"There might be a chance that they would come and watch if they knew there was a chance that I'd catch nine out of 10 high balls in the air, make some good blocks and all that. I think the game has to be promoted for what it is. It's vastly skilful. One of the fastest, greatest, games in the world."

There are small things amiss in the camogie world that means the game often shoots itself in the foot. Tipp played Limerick last year in the championship in Ballingarry in Co Limerick. The referee went to Ballingarry in Tipperary. There wasn't a programme to be had on the day.

"Locally, they could promote things better. There are some great games to be seen. We played Kilkenny this year and there was a point in it. Who was there? Parents, family and friends and a handful of supporters. I know they tried playing camogie games before hurling matches. I think they should stay with that.

"It's not going to work the first or second year, but it will work. Ladies football promotes itself very effectively. We have a great game that we have to sell."

Her own history within that game is gentle and pastoral. Reared on a farm with three brothers and three sisters the days were for school and the evenings were for tagging along after their Dad to whatever training session he was giving.

Wherever Len was training teams as his kids grew up there'd always be a duckling line of his children tagging behind. They'd puck balls around on the sideline for the duration of each session.

"With one eye we'd be watching the lads train, looking at what they'd be doing and trying to do the same. We'd listen to what Dad would be saying and try to pick up a few things there too. He'd be talking to a team and we'd all be standing behind nodding our heads, letting on we knew exactly what he was talking about. We'd agree with everything he said at that age. We can disagree with him now!"

They went everywhere. Hurled while Len trained Kilruane to the club All-Ireland of 1986, hurled while he worked with Shannon Rovers and Clonoulty Rossmore and Moycarkey through the 1980s and early '90s. Hurled while he laid the foundations in Clare. Kept tipping away when he came home to look after his own county.

Usually half a dozen of them would cram into the car. Almost always Ciara and two of her sisters, Eimear and Sinéad. Hurling training was a baby-sitting service, a few hours of peace for their mother. A respite from the worry over broken windows.

"We grew up on a farm and after dinner most days we'd have a game of hurling in the yard. Other times we'd go up to the fields when the silage was cut, but mostly we hurled in that yard. We grew up in a world where it never mattered whether you were a boy or a girl so long as you had a hurl in your hand."

Success brought encouragement where none was really needed. Ciara played hurling and football for Kilruane National School where the principal was Gilbert Williams, a wing back on that 1986 Kilruane team. In school they won county titles in hurling and football the same year, Ciara hurling on the same side as Mark O'Leary, the Tipp hurler.

She can hardly remember a conversation in those days which wasn't about hurling. "To be involved in a team made you feel more important. There was a huge emphasis in the parish on hurling. Everyone talking about it after mass or after school. It suffers a bit perhaps when people move away with jobs and stuff nowadays, but there's plenty there to take their place."

This year her form hasn't been perceptibly off, but she feels she's missing a little of the zest she had in better times. In 2001, she reigned supreme and was player of the year. Visibly this summer she hasn't struggled, but feels herself drifting in and out of games a little.

"I know that on Sunday I have to be there for the whole hour. I dread the day when I go out and it's not there for me. You never want that to happen. You don't know. You never know. I'll wrap myself in cotton wool for the week and the first ball, I could either drive it to the clouds or totally miss it. Obviously, I would dread the day too when it falls apart for us as a team.

"This year, though, our panel has been strengthened. Other years, we might have relied on the first 15 and that was it. This year it's got better."

There were many who rubbed their chins and decided that the dreaded day had come two years ago when Cork ambushed them. Since then, the sides have enjoyed a relationship which has pushed the game to new heights in terms of skill and speed and has left other counties needing to close the gap.

"Two years ago we only played okay on the day. We could have played a lot better. Cork were hungrier on the day, they were fighting for the ball more. Looking back, we were second to every ball. They just seemed hungrier. People ask what happened to us. Cork is what happened to us."

The hunger was always there, but last year it reasserted itself as a sharp and constant pang. Michael Cleary went for his pipe and slippers. Raymie Ryan stepped in. A new voice, but the same emphasis.

Suddenly, players with three All-Irelands were fighting for their place again. Cork kept the appointment in September. This time, Tipp's hunger saw them through.

She wouldn't have been too surprised if the end had come this year. All summer she had the uneasy feeling that either Tipp or Cork would get caught out in the semi-finals. Tipp played a strong Galway team and won. Cork choked off Wexford. They saw enough to know that the pack is closing. Kilkenny and Limerick aren't too much further behind.

"Wexford are in the position we were in seven years ago," she says. "We know from experience it can happen any time for a county which is doing the work. They'll make it. Next year they'll be a huge threat."

In the short term, though, all her worries wear red jerseys. Tomorrow's All-Ireland, the rubber match, will settle a lot between the sides. "What do I fear about Cork? I fear that they'll end up with more scores on the board then us. That's all."

Sixty vintage minutes would go a long way to ensuring that doesn't happen. And if Tipp win and you'll see a tall, lean man with a hooked nose and a smile on his face leaving Croke Park. That's the guy who's Ciara Gaynor's father.

Apparently, his name is Len.