Two camogie captains have used their victory speeches to ask delegates to get behind the players’ wishes for a choice of playing gear at next week’s Camogie Association Special Congress on skorts.
The Leinster camogie finals went ahead in Netwatch Cullen Park on Saturday despite senior and intermediate players from Kilkenny, Wexford, Laois and Carlow continuing their intercounty protest over skorts by wearing shorts for their warm-ups.
All four teams changed back into the still mandatory skorts before their respective throw-ins. But the senior players from Kilkenny and Wexford also noticeably changed their gear again immediately after the match, with both sides returning out for the presentation wearing shorts, in what was the last potential flashpoint before next Thursday’s Special Congress, which will vote on giving players the option of wearing shorts or skorts in future.
Carlow’s winning intermediate captain Niamh Canavan finished her acceptance speech by saying: “Last but not least to the GPA. It’s been a difficult and, at times, disappointing couple of weeks to be a camogie player but you’ve always stuck by us and hopefully the powers that be will do the same in a couple of days and sense will prevail at the Special Congress.”
Katie Power, who captained Kilkenny to their seventh provincial senior title in a row, said she is similarly positive about next Thursday’s vote.
“It’s been a tough few weeks for camogie as everyone knows so it’s great to get the game played in the best circumstances and hopefully, after Special Congress, camogie will be seen in a better light going forward into the future.”
The players had forewarned the organisers of their protest through a statement from the Gaelic Players Association, which also said that players were withdrawing the right to any photos or videos of them being taken while they were wearing skorts, which ruled out any live streaming of the games.
Kilkenny beat Wexford 0-20 to 1-6 in the senior decider despite a great second-half comeback by the Slaneysiders.
It took Wexford a full 23 minutes before Joanne Dillon got their first score from a free and they trailed the Cats 0-11 to 0-2 at half-time as Laura Murphy and Aoife Prendergast dominated upfront.
But an early second-half Dillon goal and a big defensive rally cut the deficit back to three in the third quarter. That forced Kilkenny to make a raft of substitutions at the three-quarter mark and they then fired over 0-7 without reply to seal their seventh consecutive title with Laura Murphy topscoring on 0-8, with four frees and a 45.
Carlow, led by their brilliant free-taker Eleanor Treacy, captain Niamh Canavan and Leah Ryan, beat Laois 2-9 to 1-8 in the intermediate final, despite losing influential centre back Michelle Nolan to injury just before half-time when they led 1-4 to 0-4.
Laois trailed them all the way until Kaylee O’Keeffe and Kirsten Keenan combined for a brilliant goal with 10 minutes left and then a long-range free from Aimee Collier gave them their first lead (1-8 to 1-7) with just six minutes remaining.
But then Carlow’s metronomic long-range free-taker Treacy, who finished on 1-6, scored 1-2 on the trot to seal their victory, all of them from placed balls including a fortuitous goal that looped in over a crowded goalmouth.
