Ashling Thompson was euphoric after captaining Cork to a record-equalling 26th All-Ireland camogie title.

The Milford woman has spoken openly about her battle with depression, so her joy at climbing the steps of the Hogan Cup and collecting the O'Duffy Cup was perfectly understandable.

"It's a dream, it's a dream come true," an emotional Thompson said.

"It puts the icing on my career. It's everything I've worked for and for everything that I've been through in my own life, that kind of tops it for me. it makes everything so much more worth it.

"It felt a bit like there was no one around me? I felt just so isolated in a good way. I felt like this is my stepping stone, this is my path to glory, my path to heaven. It was like I was taking the steps to heaven on my own.

"It was most certainly not that way, because I took those steps with 30 players and our management, and I just can't thank them enough."

The midfielder admitted that Cork had to work hard to contain Galway in the second half.

"Every team gets a purple patch and we said at half-time that they could come out and go for a goal and there'd only be a point in it," she added.

"We knew that ourselves at half-time. We knew it was 0-0 again. Some people don't even know the score at half-time, we just don't take any notice. We knew their purple patch would come and we knew it would be in those first 10 minutes.

"But I suppose that's the difference between Cork camogie and everyone else - when the going gets tough, who's going to throw in the towel first? it certainly wasn't us and we got the result we wanted."

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