BEFORE A SLIOTAR was pucked in the All-Ireland camogie final, Hannah Looney was talking about Cork’s wish to be a ‘generational team’.
She wasn’t looking beyond Galway necessarily – but the dual star was aware of her side’s place in history.
“We are not happy with just having the one All-Ireland under our belt,” Looney told The Irish Examiner.
“We really want to drive on and be a generational team, but that’s not easy either. But when you are from Cork, it is kind of what you are expected to do.”
Just after the final whistle of Sunday’s 1-16 to 0-16 win, with the O’Duffy Cup defended, she was repeating those sentiments to the RTÉ cameras.
“What we want is to be a generational team,” Looney said, “and to win back-to-back is only the start of it. We’ll keep going.
“It’s something we’ve done in Cork before so it’s in the tank in a lot of us. What hasn’t been done is the three-in-a-row. Maybe it’s a bit too early to start talking about that…”
It has been done. Cork have achieved the camogie feat three times, but not in Looney or her team-mates’ lifetimes. They last won three-in-a-row in the early seventies, crowned champions four years on the bounce from 1970 to 1973.
Since then, they have gone back-to-back eight times — 82/83, 92/93, 97/98, 05/06, 08/09, 14/15 and 17/18 before this edition. There have also been some standalone wins, but three-in-a-row has proven elusive.
Opportunity awaits now, after turning two consecutive final defeats to Galway and Kilkenny into a pair of successive wins.
“We should be going for five-in-a-row, we should be like Limerick,” manager Ger Manley told his post-match press conference, half joking but mostly serious.
“We should have won the last four if you go through it.”
Manley, who was a selector under Matthew Twomey but moved into the managerial hot-seat this year, echoed those sentiments in a separate media interview.
“This is our fourth final in-a-row and we lost two we should have won,” he said. “But these are a team of their generation. They’re so good.
“We’re going to push on again if we can.”
He offered insight into the set-up and their 2024: how they “raised the bar” and trained smart, with particular praise given to coach Liam Cronin.
“Killing girls and killing fellas five nights a week is madness,” Manley said at one point.
“We’ve a happy camp,” he added at another. “It’s all about the team, not the individual.”
Beside him, vice captain Méabh Cahalane spoke about the freshness added to the panel, competitiveness in training and the overall hunger.
It sounds like that will only grow as they look to drive on.
Galway manager Cathal Murray has no doubt they will.
“Cork are a super team and they could go on to dominate for a few years,” he said.
“They’ve an unbelievable amount of underage coming through. They’ve won five of the last six minors, four-in-a-row under-16s up to this year. They’re just an incredible team.”
Add the intermediate team’s success to that at underage level and the good times are rolling on Leeside.
Ashling Thompson is the oldest player on the starting team at 34, though appears to be enjoying a new lease of life, while the similarly long-serving Mackey twins, Katrina and Pamela, are 33. The bulk of the team are in their mid-to-late twenties, so the age profile augurs well as they look to cement their legacy as a “generational team”.
For Galway, meanwhile, the winter is uncertain.
This one will really hurt.
Murray’s future will be in the spotlight. He has been at the helm since 2018, steering the Tribe to four All-Ireland finals with the winning record evenly split. He did agree new terms for 2024/2025 with the option of 2026 last November, but anything could happen. He has been linked with other jobs in the past, including the Galway senior hurling one.
An emotional moment in yesterday’s press conference will leave people wondering if this is the end. “They’ve been incredible since I came in,” Murray said, before being forced into a sentimental pause.
Galway have a similar blend of youth and experience to Cork, but must add depth if they are to challenge for a first O’Duffy Cup next year. Sorcha McCartan and Clodagh Finn bagged crucial scores as the Rebels bench made their impact felt down the stretch, but the Tribe didn’t get much change from theirs.
2025 will be interesting, to say the least.
Cork have made their three-in-a-row intentions clear, but what about everyone else?
Will the Big Three dominance continue? Will Kilkenny, like Galway, bounce back?
Or could we see a major breakthrough?
Tipperary, Waterford and Dublin have shown signs of shaking things up of late.
