Cork camogie star Sorcha McCartan says the younger players in the Rebels’ squad “brought a bit of a freshness” to the set-up this season.

The Leesiders defeated holders Galway by 2-14 to 0-19 at Croke Park a fortnight ago to avenge last year’s final defeat to the same opposition and claim their county’s 31st O’Duffy’s Cup success in the process.

McCartan’s performance in the final earned her the ‘Player of the Match’ award and she has since been named PwC GPA Player of the Month for August in camogie.

Speaking to RTE Sport, the St Finbarr’s sharpshooter said that the younger contingent of Cork’s squad made a huge impact this past season.

"I think they brought a bit of a freshness in terms of maybe there was less of a tense atmosphere. Not that the girls that left were tense, but I suppose they were around for so long that they brought a bit of seriousness to it.

"They understood the magnitude of trouble that we were in. We had one win on the board at the end of May. That's really unheard of for a Cork camogie team.

"But I think the younger girls always stuck at it, never complained, never were wondering why we weren’t winning, they were just training as hard as they could and really reaped the rewards at the end.

"There are huge kudos as well to the girls that maybe didn’t come that we are not talking about because they are the ones that drove the standards in training.

"I’m marking Aoife Barrett or Maedhbh de Búrca every night at training and they are the ones driving us on and putting us under pressure every night and they are probably not even getting game time."

Tweet

Most Read Stories