*Sarah Loughnane leads the celebrations in Hotel Woodstock. Photograph: John Mangan
AT HALF-TIME in Croke Park, the message from Clare’s junior camogie panel was simply, they were not leaving Dublin without the Kathleen Mills Cup.
Freetaker Sarah Loughnane finished as top scorer for Clare as they recorded a 3-07 1-08 win over Tipperary on Sunday in Croke Park.
An emotional Loughnane held back tears when reflecting on what their breakthrough meant. “It’s absolutely unreal, it’s emotion here now talking after the game, it’s everything you dream of playing in Croke Park and to go out there and win behind that team is absolutely unreal, it’s a feeling that I don’t know if anything in life will ever top it”.
With sixteen minutes on the clock, Clare had yet to score while they had conceded 1-03 to Tipperary. A chance of another Tipp goal went abegging with corner back Sinead Hogg making a vital block, it prompted a long-distance run from Jennifer Daly, the sliotar ended up in Sarah’s hands and she planted it in the back of the net to get Clare off the mark.
Once the green flag was raised, Sarah knew there would be no stopping Clare. “This team, we’ve known we can go back six or seven points and we will creep back, it happened in the semi-final against Armagh when we were six points down with ten minutes to go and we came back to win by two points. We know the belief is within the team and that is massive, to be down that far and to know we could creep back, the minute I got the goal I knew we would drive on and that Clare had arrived in Croke Park and that we would take off”.
By the interval, they were level with Michelle McMahon equalising on the stroke of half-time. Inside in the dressing room, Sarah said the message was simple, “In the second half, I don’t know what happened in the first half that we weren’t really blazing at all, we looked each other in the eye at half time and said let’s put the foot down because we’re not leaving it behind us and that is what we did, two goals later and here we are as All-Ireland champions”.
On the restart, they struck for two goals inside the first seven minutes of the second half via Caoimhe Cahill and Labhaoise O’Donnell. “We’ve been head down going for goal the whole time at training and even at matches, we didn’t get any goal against Armagh and we knew we had to get goals to win the game, we took our goal chances when they were on, I’m delighted for Caoimhe Cahill as well, what a player, she’s playing in the football next weekend, she is a credit to play alongside and is everything you want in a player, you can have a chat with her, we really link up well together so it is a pity we’re not with the same club!”.
Sixmilebridge’s Loughnane confessed that it wasn’t until she was substituted with fifty five minutes played that she became aware Tipperary’s Ciara Brennan was sent off twelve minutes previously. “When I came off with five minutes to go, I asked Grainne Travers beside me if they had a player sent off because of the red beside Tipperary on the big screen, I hadn’t noticed, it passed me by”.
A past pupil of St Caimin’s Community School in Shannon, Sarah admitted that the task of hitting the frees was a nervous one, she missed the first two placed balls but with finish the encounter by hitting three frees. “I was quite nervous, the first two didn’t go my way as Sinead Hogg said ‘if you miss one or two, we know you’ll be on form after that’, I was nervous enough and delighted to get my shot to take over the frees”.
Celebrations will be enjoyed, she confirmed. “It’s going to be unbelievable, it won’t just be tonight, it’ll be the week or a month to celebrate, I’m a proud Bridge woman and very delighted for my family”.
