St Rynagh's captain hails 'complete performance'

Gráinne Dolan followed up a tremendous personal performance in a wonderful team display by being presented with the trophy as winning captain after the AIB All-Ireland Intermediate Club Camogie Championship final for the second time in two months.

While that first one was sweet, particularly having lost the previous decider to a late goal, getting to climb the Hogan Stand steps to get her hands on the silverware, having shone on the famous Croke Park pitch on the way to recording a 5-14 to 2-6 triumph over Salthill-Knocknacarra, made it all the better for Dolan and her teammates.

“Everyone’s dream is to come and play in Croke Park but to come and play with your club and your teammates that you’ve grown up with and played camogie with up along, there’s something so special about it,” said Dolan with an ear-to-ear grin. “To win here today, words don’t describe how unbelievable it feels.

“We were coming off a very heartbroken performance here two years ago, so we really wanted to make that wrong right and we really did that today and I’m so over the moon right now.”

Using their pace to create countless opportunities, and with the diagonal ball suiting tremendous movement up front, the Offaly crew created havoc. Siobhán Flannery, Mairéad Daly and Katie O’Connell hit first-half goals, with further majors coming after the restart from Flannery and the majestic Kate Kenny, who finished with 1-9, with only four points from placed balls.

“We learned from two years ago. I think the nerves got to us a little bit. We didn’t execute some of the plans we had in place. We knew how important it was to stick to the plan and just workrate, workrate, workrate from the very beginning. Everything we worked on in training, we just made sure that we brought every bit of that to the game.

“I’m just so glad. I feel it was such a complete performance.”