Camogie in Waterford Is On the Verge of Some Big Days

If you are a regular follower of what I have to say on both my social media pages and on my blog page, then you will know that a great deal of what I put on those pages has to do with the G.A.A. and in particular to the Ladies games of Ladies Football and Camogie.

I love both of those games and it is a wish of mine that more people were interested in the games. My aim in reporting as much as I do on both games is to try and get more people interested in both games and more importantly in going to see our different county teams in Ladies Football and Camogie and indeed the club scene. My only regret is that I cannot put more on both games on my social media and blog pages than I actually do.

Ten years ago I was approached by the then Sports Editor of the Munster Express newspaper Jamie O’Keeffe asking me if I was interested in writing for the paper. At the time I had just given up working as a school secretary at Saint Mary’s Touraneena National School after 15 and had no real plans to do anything for some while, but when the chance arose to do some writing for a local paper I knew I could not turn it down.

At first I was told what games needed to be covered, but over the weeks and months that followed after me being asked to write for the paper I began to work on my own instinct and began to attend games that I was not asked to report on, mostly Ladies Football and Camogie games and brought with me my note book, biro and stopwatch to take some notes, formulate  reports and sent them off in an email and left it up to others as to whether there was room for it in the paper.

On more occasions than not my reports were used and I knew from talking to some that they were being read as one or two might have pointed out some small mistakes that I might have made, which were often maybe someone changing a jersey number that was not announced and scoring meaning that I might have given the score in my report to the wrong person.

At the time the recession had kicked in, and newspaper editors and owners had to make some tough calls, reducing the numbers of pages in their newspaper, or making stories shorter in a bid to cut down on printing costs. This meant extra work for the editors as I am someone that has often been told that when I sit at a computer keyboard and start hitting the keys that I forget to stop pressing them and what I often sent very lengthy match reports.

Then something struck me. I had been following a few different people on twitter that had their own blogs. I looked at a few different ones and decided that I would set up one, one that I felt I could easily upload stuff on, where space would not be an issue when it comes to reporting on what I saw at games allowing me to put together some lengthy reports.

Ladies football was no problem to me when it came to reporting. I was watching games from the time I was in national school myself in the mid 1980’s when Mrs Anne McGrath a teacher in Touraneena was encouraging girls to play football, watching them train under her at break times I therefore had felt I had a good knowledge of the game, its rules and its history as I began to attend club games and county games over the next twenty years or so.

Camogie to me was a different story. Although there was a Camogie Club in Touraneena when I was growing up, I seldom if ever went to see the women of the parish playing. There was no Camogie played in the school in Touraneena and when I went to secondary school in Cappoquin the girls that were interested in sports mostly played Basketball or Volleyball with one or two occasionally getting involved in a game of soccer with the boys.

In the 80’s and 90’s for me the local papers were the two Dungarvan papers, the ‘Leader’ and the ‘Observer’ and through no fault of their respective owners or the journalists that worked for them there was little or no Camogie coverage in them each week, meaning that the majority of people in West Waterford unless you were involved in a club knew little or nothing about the game of Camogie or what was happening in the county.

For me that would all change in the early part of the current centaury. Waterford won the 2003 All-Ireland under 16 ‘B’ Final, beating Armagh in the final at Port Laoise. Some brilliant young were part of that team, players like Aisling O’Brien, Charlotte Raher, Jenny Simpson, Emma Hannon, Áine Lyng, Trish Jackman and Laura Buckley while not knowing there were clearly players that we had to look out for in the future.

Aisling O’Brien was someone that I would have known a little about. I had seen her playing in goal in a number of West Waterford Primary School games with Aglish playing with the boys’ teams. On many occasion she was the difference between her side winning and losing a game as she would pull off some impressive saves. When tongue in cheek I would ask a side made up of seven or nine boys how they lost to a team with a girl in goal, the answer was often that they could not try their hardest on her, they did not want to hurt her. The truth in fact was different. Those same boys could not find a way past her while she was in goal.

There was still no Camogie played in Touraneena but that would soon change. One day two girls Niamh Walsh and Maighread Barron told me during their lunch break that they were bored while I was out around the yard watching different groups of children play. They asked me could they get two hurleys. I told them where they knew where they were but to get two helmets if they were getting hurleys. I went off and got them a small plastic sliotar to hit around between them.

For a few days the sliotar was asked for, and as more girls saw them hitting a sliotar between themselves more girls wanted to join in. ‘Jesus we are useless, we can’t even hit the ball fecking right’ they told me, but I told them to keep at it and as the days went on, there was an improvement there to be seen. A few weeks later they were asking me could I get them entered into the different competitions just as the boys were in hurling. Seeing that there was an appetite amongst them to play I said I could not see a problem and said it to the teachers in the school. I told them that I felt they were improving every day they played and therefore it was agreed they could play in the Mini 7’s and in the West Waterford Primary School’s league. In both competitions the girls reached the final of both competition, but were to lose out in both.

Thanks to Niamh and Maighread asking me could they play with two hurleys and watching them play I began to get hooked on the game myself and get interested in the games.

When I began writing for the Munster Express I began to attend National League games played in Dungarvan writing reports for the paper and on my blog on what I saw. The first game I attended was a National League game against Wexford’s second string side where I was very impressed with a very young Lorraine Bray who was lining out for Waterford and pointing out that she had a very big future in the game.

I would have loved to have attended the All-Ireland Junior Finals of 2009, 2019 and 2011 which Waterford were involved in, but the Waterford County Board in their wisdom at the time decided to pencil in Club games the days that all three finals were played, and I was needed to cover them.

After coming up from the junior grade I saw the Waterford team play a number of times in both league and championship and was delighted to be in Croke Park when they won the Intermediate title in 2015 beating Kildare in the final.

After Waterford reached and won the under 16 All-Ireland Final in 2003 new clubs began to spring up around the county. Young players right across the county began to see what could be achieved with hard work and determination if they played the game.

Some great people got involved at administration and coaching levels. Nobody felt after winning one All-Ireland that the hard work was done, the greatest mistake made by so many counties. There were some that felt that this was only the start for Waterford and for Camogie in the County.

Success followed for Different sides. Some excellent underage teams were put together. The best of these players from 2003 were brought onto the Waterford Junior team, some of whom would play in between one and three All-Ireland Finals in a three year spell.

Success at Junior grade saw Waterford move up to the intermediate grade and over the next three years Waterford reached three All-Ireland Semi Finals in a row, clearly showing that the hard work was paying off. But those involved in the development of the game in Waterford were not resting on their laurels.

A new group of brilliant underage players were put together and some of them were part of the Waterford Intermediate team that won the 2015 All-Ireland Final at Croke Park, meaning that Waterford were now going to be playing in the Senior grade and would also be competing in the top division of the National League after they won the Division Two title again in 2015.

For a year or two playing against the top teams staying there was going to be seen as progress for Waterford. In 2018 Waterford appointed Cappoquin man Donal O’Rourke as team manager to the senior team. Under him they narrowly missed out on a place in the semi finals of the league (score difference was used to decide if it would be Waterford or Limerick) and later in the year they reached the All-Ireland Quarter Finals where they lost out to Tipperary in Cork.

This year Waterford again reached the All-Ireland Quarter Finals where with five minutes to go against Galway in Thurles they were well in contention for a semi final appearance.

The current senior panel is a brilliant group of players, but nobody will be able to sit back and think that they are assured of a place in the team or even the panel. Coming along is another brilliant group of players.

Last year Waterford won the Munster Minor ‘A’ championship beating a very fancied Cork side in the final and this past week saw Waterford’s under 16 team win the All-Ireland ‘B’ title beating Limerick in the final.

This year saw some of the best players from last year’s minor team make their way onto the senior panel and no doubt there will be some on this year’s under 16 team that could be brought in for a run with the seniors next year if not the year after, where they will be challenging for a place not just in the panel but on the starting team. It would not be a surprise to see some of last year’s minor team not involved this year with the seniors get a call up for the experience of training with and playing against some of the best players in the country. Others no doubt will be involved with the counties junior team.

Camogie is a game that is going from strength to strength in Waterford. The fact that Waterford which has one of the smallest number of clubs in the country are able to field Senior and Junior teams on the Inter County front speaks volumes about the quality of personnel there is over the game in Waterford, the quality of people that are working in coaching and more over about the numbers of players there is in the county is able to have two adult teams as well as numerous underage teams including more than one at some grades.

I have no doubt that Camogie in Waterford right now is in a very good place. Previous success’ at underage and even adult levels has got more and more girls interested in the game, and I have no doubt that the successes of the under 16 and minor teams will get more girls in areas where players came from interested in the game, hoping that they can someday soon replicate what their friends have done. The same hopefully with the success the county senior’s have had. Twice in the last two years they have played live on RTE television, something that can only have got young girls thinking out the game of Camogie and dreaming that one day it could be one of them that we will be seeing on our TV screens in the years to come.

I have no doubt that nobody involved in Waterford Camogie will think they are assured of success in the years ahead because they have had success in recent years on the underage front and the seniors reaching an All-Ireland quarter final would be seen as success.

Some great days are around the corner I feel for Camogie in Waterford, bigger days than we have experienced in recent years. The next hope for the seniors would have to be to reach an All-Ireland semi final and even an All-Ireland Final. To win in Croke Park would be absolute fantastic, but for now let’s work on getting the team there first.

Every effort has to be made to keeping the players from the under 16 and minor teams in the last two years for as long as possible. The idea of a junior county team should not be just about keeping them involved but to try and get them into the senior team. It would be brilliant to think that with the players Waterford have on the underage scene in recent years that Waterford’s junior team could become an intermediate team and that Waterford could play against second string sides from the likes of Limerick, Cork, Kilkenny, Galway and Wexford in the Intermediate grade, and not just to play against them but to rival them for silverware.

There is some brilliant club sides in Waterford, some are new clubs, others are around a while that are producing some good young players. They have to be encouraged to keep at what they are doing, producing players to play on the different underage county teams.

I for one am glad that I began to attend Camogie games in the last number of years and looking out for young players that might have a future in the game and watching their progress up through the grades.

One of my aims in writing reports on Camogie games firstly for the Munster Express, then my blog and in more recent times for all of the local papers is to try and get more and more people interested in the game of Camogie and attending games. Each time I write a report if it means just one person that has not attended a game of Camogie in their life or who might not have attended for some time turns up and see some very skilful players it will be worth it.

In the last number of years I have seen the numbers of people attending Camogie games, especially at inter county level start to rise. There is still a long way to go of course to have attendances to where I and others would love to see them. Will we see a day when the All-Ireland Finals at Croke Park will be all ticket affairs? I for one would love to think they would, but it might take a few years yet, but things are moving in the right way to having that happen.

Camogie in Waterford is moving in the right direction. If you need proof, make it your business to start going to see some games. Keep an eye on the social media pages of the County Camogie Board. Its officers are doing great work in trying to promote the games and give details of the games as they come up. Keep an eye out on the social media pages of the different clubs in the county. There is some great people there too that are doing great work to try and get people to games.

Those that follow the game in the county won’t need any telling that Camogie in Waterford is heading in the right direction and could well be on the crest of a wave. Hurling in Waterford will always be the favourite game for most sports fan’s and few will need any telling of the commitment that is made by those that play it, especially those at the highest level on the inter county scene.

But it must never be forgotten that while for now Camogie receives less coverage than what hurling gets, the commitment of the players and those tasked with developing the game is the same as what the county hurlers put in and sometimes it could be said to be even higher.

I for one think Waterford are very close to big days in the years ahead, and I hope that I will be present to see them as they happen. The question I would love to ask, will you be there as well?