LockerRoom/Tom Humphries: Wow! First thoughts on Saturday's big game, the weather it was played in and the position it leaves us in now: should the match have been played at all?
Were the visitors at a disadvantage facing not just an away crowd but such passion and such rain? Where does a famous victory like Saturday's leave us all vis-a-vis the future? Is it a turning point?
As a display it probably wasn't the prettiest we've seen from this team and the opening passages gave cause for worry. Yet as the game wore on the good things became more plentiful and, if, in the end the winning margin was a little harsh for the losing side to swallow, well, so many of this team suffered at their hands early in their careers.
On Saturday there was going to be no let-up.
Readers who think we are talking about rugby here may like to make alternative arrangements.
Rugby's fatwah on this column remains and anyway, 10 years of toil in the saltmines of daily journalism has taught this column one thing, the readership's appetite for news of under-11 camogie in Dublin is insatiable.
You'll remember that 18 months ago when we last discussed our heroes they were designated under-11 Bs or apprentice sorcerers. After weeks and weeks of humiliations which began with a generously administered stuffing from Whitehall Colmcilles they had won their first game, a result which shook the sports world and sent the sales of fizzy drinks skyrocketing.
(Commercial break: this column is proud to announce a once-in-a-lifetime offer for the benefit of discerning readers.
Remember the account of that first victory, the mention of one of the stars of that game getting sick in the back of this column's car on the way home? Well, she scored two on Saturday and is generally hailed as a superstar in the making and now, various items of vomit-stained memorabilia are offered to collectors. Trade offers welcome also.)
At the end of last season the Bs were no more. They were broken up and sent to various new postings. Some to the deeps of the under-12 game, the bulk of them to become, ta da, under-11 As.
When they started pre-season work you would have given little for their chances yet, through many toils, dangers, snares and teams who play bangers, they have already come through.
On Saturday, in front of a large crowd of hooded people and a woman carrying her Shop Electric umbrella, with confidence and elan they won their first county medals. It was remembered by a few that there was something symmetrical about Whitehall Colmcilles being the victims.
IT was a great moment. The best fun you could have in muck and rain. Not that the occasion wasn't slightly tinged with disappointment. Due to a mishearing at training some of the under-11s had thought that, all going well, the cup would be presented to them by "the German", and visions of a stern man with a monocle congratulating
St Wincent's fuelled their passion.
In the end "the chairman" turned out to be a nice woman who said complimentary things about the style of the win and the future of the game in Dublin.
Spot on too. This is the future. We were there. We've seen it.
Imagine these things or the absence of them. In an entire season none of the following happened: not one of the under-11s got arrested.
None of them sold stories to the tabloids (although in the interest of full journalistic disclosure it must be said that the inception of this column involves a transaction, the details of which cannot be gone into.) None of the under-11s were linked to Ulrika Jonsson.
Not once was Mr Clancy, mentor and guru, abused or disrespected by a star player in front of other players. All abuse of Mr Clancy was done discreetly and behind his back. Not once did Mr Clancy have to call a press conference to explain that he'd sent home one of his midfielders.
Not once did Mr Clancy hear booing from the stands. Not once was the family of a player threatened with kidnapping. No politicians turned up to be photographed around the team.
It was sport so pure that this column, which has to go out and deal with the big boys every week, could hardly recognise it as sport.
What's going on and why is everyone so happy?
There were no positive drug tests. No demands for one hundred and twenty seven euro a week. No training ground bust-ups. No want-away midfielders. No court appearances.
Nobody left and the panel had more players in it at the end of the year than the beginning. Everyone of them was a better player at the end of the year.
And as a bunch of people? You could scour the earth and not find so many good kids.
So, where did it all go wrong? Why is every girl in the country not out playing camogie? Why are clubs generally so bad at promoting the game?
No harm to women's football but how can the women's All-Ireland football final at Croke Park be attracting twice the number of spectators that the camogie final does.
Why are we not selling this great game aggressively? Why can camogie players not wear shorts? Why no juvenile grades after under-16? Why doesn't every kid playing in a club get a free ticket to the All-Ireland final?
MORE to the point why is the Government whose endless lip service concerning its love of sport has amounted to nothing more than a wastepaper basket full of blueprints of stadiums and a litany of broken promises, why aren't they pumping money into sport at this level?
Why isn't there a solid culture not just of community-based sport but of community-based sport involving that half of the community?
These aren't things that young women with county medals need to be worrying about. The seasons stretch ahead for them and there isn't one of Saturday's side who hasn't the potential to be great within the game.
They have happy years left to them where they just play the game for the sake of it and for the love of it and for the joy of getting better at it and of learning how to express themselves through play.
They are well coached by Mr Clancy, but the fascinating thing about watching the under-11s is that all of them play with traces of their own personality in their game. You could watch them for half a dozen matches and produce good personality profiles of them all: who is scatty, who is timid, and who is exuberant.
So maybe these are the best years, maybe the photos we took in the rain on Saturday will be the ones we'll always look at.
Camogie in the time before cynicism, boredom and grown-up troubles. No stains of the big time or the bad world.
Just being there watching them made us all sentimental winners.
Thanks for that, girls of St Wincent's.
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