*The Kilmaley trio of Caoimhe Cahill, Sinead O’Keeffe and Grace Carmody at the homecoming in Hotel Woodstock. Photograph: John Mangan
SINEAD O’KEEFFE, Clare’s All-Ireland winning Junior camogie captain is confident their success will lead to more days out in Croke Park.
When delivering a fine speech from the steps of the Hogan Stand, Sinead referenced the success of Clare’s U16 side in winning the All-Ireland in the previous week and how it drove them on for glory. She also mentioned that pushing onto the county’s senior and junior panels to strive for further All-Ireland final appearances on the biggest day of the camogie calender in Croke Park.
Moments after leading Clare to their fifth ever Junior All-Ireland, Sinead was already looking to the future. “We want to push on for the next five, ten or fifteen years, we want more days out in Croke Park, we don’t get them very often but we know we have the standard and the quality players in the county, that was shown by the U16s who set the bar for us last weekend getting over the line in the U16 final, they are the stepping stone to go forward and step into the junior and senior teams, there’s so much talent that we want these days out for many years”.
Alongside Broadford’s Niamh Mulqueen, Sinead had been part of the Clare Junior side who suffered semi-final defeats to Kerry (2019) and Antrim (2022). It made the magnitude of their breakthrough all the sweeter. “Me and Niamh Mulqueen have been struggling on this team for a long time trying to get over the line and she was right beside me, as soon as that whistle went the two of us started bawling crying, that is what it means, that is how special it us and how much it means to us to get over the line. We dream of these days, we made it a bit difficult for ourselves and maybe panicked our supporters a little bit”.
She added, “We dream of these days in Croke Park, we said during the week that we dream of them but we also have to get over the line, we’ve done that so we will make the most of the next week”.
Given the manner in which they bounced back in the semi-final win over Armagh with points from Sarah Loughnane and Grace Carmody securing their victory on that occasion, Sinead stated that the previous tests of their self-belief ensured they stayed composed after a poor opening quarter which saw them fail to score and Tipperary dominated with 1-02 on the board. By half-time, the teams were level.
“We did the same thing in the semi-final, at half-time we were quite relaxed because we knew we had a second half performance, that hasn’t just come from the two years under John Carmody’s management but it’s been building for a long time, players involved have brought experience and hurt from losing semi-finals, we also have the younger players like Caoimhe Cahill who stood up at eighteen years of age with a player of the match performance, that is phenomenal and it is why we got over the line, all thirty people on the panel”.
Part of a formidable half-back line which included Newmarket-on-Fergus duo Laura McMahon and Ellen Casey, the tackles in this sector were invaluable when Clare exerted their authority on proceedings in the third quarter. “It’s great to have Ellen bringing the age-gap down for us. Laura Mc brings the experience and Ellen has so much experience from Newmarket-on-Fergus and UL, we do work well together and stay level headed most of the time, the management has built the half-back line, last year I wasn’t a half-back but John Carmody put me in the position even though I asked what I had to do to get out of there he said ‘absolutely not’ but now I’m delighted to be there and it shows on the field, we work really well on the field and we want to keep building that forward”.
Kilmaley’s O’Keeffe added, “We set our targets for our tackles per game, we had a really high tackle count and that is a result of not meeting it against Armagh, it comes from every player on the field. Caoimhe Cahill tracked every ball but our backs worked really hard in not giving away the ball, we knew the threat, pace and power Tipp had which showed in the first twenty minutes when they drove at us, it was really lucky that we had the strength in our defence to work from that”.
A holder of multiple senior ladies football championships with Banner Ladies, Sinead was confident Clare would not be out of their depth when it comes to competing in the intermediate grade in 2024. “We played some intermediate teams this year and we were quite close to them even the likes of Galway who won the intermediate championship last year, we played them in challenge games and maybe you could say that challenge games aren’t representative, we really put it up to Kerry in the Munster semi-final, that is where we want to be at, we want to be pushing players onto the senior panel”.
