by Kevin Egan

The big guns in Group 1 take a step back from the action this weekend, but students of the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship will have their eyes firmly trained on UPMC Nowlan Park tomorrow, where Kilkenny will play host to Clare in a top-of-the-table Group 2 clash.

With perfect records in the first three rounds of games, these two sides have a firm grip on the two quarter-final places that are on offer in the second group.

Kilkenny’s emergence as dark horses for the championship is no huge surprise given the county’s strong track record at underage level in recent years, and stars of their 2021 All-Ireland minor-winning side have now matured into real leaders at senior level, with another wave of talented teenagers waiting in the wings to fight for places in the years ahead.

Arguably however, the county better prepared to emerge from the chasing pack is Clare.

The Banner’s form in 2026 has been undeniable. They salvaged a draw with a late equaliser in the first round of the league against Dublin in Abbotstown, and since then they’ve posted eight wins from eight games, picking up some silverware in the form of the Centra Division 1B League title along the way.

The asterisk attached to that run of form is that in both the league and championship, Clare have been kept apart from the championship front-runners. For that reason, tomorrow’s match represents an excellent chance to see where they really stand against a side that like them, reached the last six 12 months ago also.

“So far we’ve beaten Dublin by three, Wexford by four and Limerick by five points, so there’s been nothing in these games,” says goalkeeper Doireann Murphy, who returned to the panel for this season, winning back her place between the posts.

“It’s been great to build that momentum, and although you can see that the Group 1 teams are getting more high-intensity games, we’d hope that the step up won’t be too much. On paper, the winner of the Championship should come from Group 1. A team from that side could win the Championship in five matches and we’ll play that many just to get out of the group – but if we can build confidence along the way, who knows?”

The news that star forward Lorna McNamara sustained an ACL injury early on in Clare’s win over Wexford could well have been a hammer blow to that rising confidence, but Eugene Foudy’s outfit has responded brilliantly to that setback, with a host of different players stepping up to carry the weight that was previously carried by the PWC-GPA Camogie Player of the month for April.

“Lorna’s a massive loss, all we can do now is keep playing for her, and whatever we achieve this year, she’ll have been as much a part of it as anyone,” said Murphy.

“Róisín Begley is flying and she’s a huge threat inside, Maeve Millea came off the bench to replace Lorna against Wexford and scored 1-1, we’re getting huge contributions off the bench every week, so there is a good panel there. Brilliant and all as Lorna was, she’s one player and there are a lot of talented players in this squad, ready to win now, we’re not just marking time waiting for her to come back.”

Bridging the gap to the Corks and Galways of the world won’t be easy, but that sense of seizing the day and not waiting around is central to the Clare ethos.

Murphy, who has a lengthy sporting CV with handball (World and All-Ireland) and football (county) titles to her name, stepped away for 2025 to take some time off the hamster wheel, albeit she was still busy with her club Clarecastle.

“I didn’t go travelling or anything. You’d still be training two or three nights a week. It was as much about stepping back from the pressure of it all, taking the time to get some of your social life back. Honestly, I didn’t do a lot differently.”

Even though she played outfield in the Magpie colours, her form was such that she got the call from Foudy to come back into the fold for the 2026 campaign, and as a result, she feels that it’s been the most enjoyable year she’s had with the county.

“Maybe I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t get my place back!” she jokes, but in an evolving game, it’s easy to see why the Clare management wanted an experienced reader of the sport in between the posts.

“It’s definitely more structured, the level of conditioning is excellent and you would have your tactics and set plays when you go out onto the field,” she says, with a significant caveat.

“We’re still empowered by the management to play what’s in front of you, and you need to do that. A team shows up and they bring something different, maybe it’s two players inside with the third dropping off to try and steal puckout breaks, and you have to be able to change what you’re doing to respond.

“There are downsides to playing in goal in that if you make a mistake, there’s no-one behind you to bail you out, but the other side of it is that you see everything that’s going on in front of you and you get your own perspective on the whole game. Maybe it’s a little thing like you see a corner-forward looking to go onto her left and the corner-back doesn’t notice because she’s right there on her shoulder, or maybe you see the way a team overloads on their own puckout.

“Either way, there’s a lot more that you have to react to on the field. It’s all very different from the old game of just getting the ball as far up the field as you can, as quick as you can.”

That instinct for reading the game has also served Murphy well professionally. As a PE and Irish teacher in a strong hurling and camogie school (Presentation Athenry), it was always likely that she’d find herself in charge of school teams, and sure enough she coached both the school’s first year and senior teams over the past year.

“It’s nice to work with players that you know will be future stars. Then you see some players that you’ve worked with going on to win the club All-Ireland and you’d be overjoyed for them.

“Loreto Kilkenny have led the way for the last few years, but we’ve some fine players coming up as well so hopefully we’ll get back to another All-Ireland in the next few years.”

Knocking over one Kilkenny team might be on the medium-term horizon, but with recharged batteries and a chance to lock down an All-Ireland quarter-final berth with one game to spare, another huge battle with the Cats is on Doireann Murphy’s radar for tomorrow afternoon.

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