Eimear Ryan: There is much the GAA can learn from its female codes

On  Off the Ball after the Cork-Clare decider, Richie Hogan declared this idea ‘bullshit’, reasoning that the best team always wins the All-Ireland because the goal is not to knock out last year’s champions; it’s to do whatever it takes to win this year’s final. And he’s right, of course. Dealing in moral victories is often a pointless exercise. But I still always feel gutted for teams in Cork’s position, because it takes incredible self-belief, guts, and an ability to play beyond yourself to beat champions — to refute the familiar narrative and improvise a new one.

The Dublin camogie team had such a victory last month when they beat Kilkenny — the 2022 champions — in the All-Ireland quarter-final, to qualify for a rare semi-final appearance. 

A clever flicked goal from Sinead Wylde set them up for an uneasy early lead, but they defied the expected narrative and kept their heads above water the entire game, securing a four-point victory.

Their reward was to play Cork in last weekend’s semi-final, and it was both devastating and awe-inspiring to see them so thoroughly dismantled by last year’s victors. Calmly running the ball through the lines, Cork made Dublin’s sweeper set-up look naïve. 

It was always going to be an uphill battle for an emerging team to face the experience, aggression, and intelligence of players like Ashling Thompson and Laura Treacy; throw in the firepower and running threat of Amy O’Connor, Saoirse McCarthy, and Orlaith Cahalane, and it was game over.

To Dublin’s credit, they kept creating goal chances: an early penalty, a half-time scorcher from Elyse Jamieson-Murphy, a late effort from Sinead Wylde. The exceptional Amy Lee, and the post, came to Cork’s defence. 

That’ll happen; Cork have put up impressive margins against almost all their opponents this season. One would hope that Dublin can take the good from their broadly positive 2024 season. They’ve proved they have the players; now they need to finesse the approach.

Heading into the All-Ireland final on Sunday August 11, the question on everyone’s mind will be — can anyone beat, or even match Cork? Just over a month ago, in their final group game, Cork put up another steep margin against Galway, winning 2-16 to 1-7 in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Nothing is won yet, but on form this year, Cork enter the final as hot favourites.

Galway showed grit and composure last weekend to crank out a semi-final win against a Tipperary team who will feel, yet again, as if they left it behind them. As a mere spectator, I’m tormented wondering when it will be Tipp’s time — I can’t imagine how the players must feel. The match against Galway played out in an eerily similar fashion to last year’s semi-final defeat to Waterford, down to the identical final score: 1-12 to 1-11.

The game was decided in injury-time, with Carrie Dolan holding her nerve to point a long-range free, having missed a similar chance in the closing moments of normal time. It’s hard to fault the Tipp players, with Eimears McGrath, Heffernan and Loughman bringing particular spark, but Tipp’s sideline seemed tentative, only introducing 2023 All-Star Cáit Devane midway through the second half.

Given her instant impact, and her ability to play off and read the rangy, wristy McGrath, it’s a mystery she wasn’t started.

Perhaps it will suit Galway to go into the final a little under the radar, but they will need to raise their game significantly to prevent Cork from romping home like they did in last year’s final, when they beat Waterford by 5-13 to 0-9.

Camogie is in an interesting transitional phase: It’s incredible to see teams like Dublin and Waterford in the final shakeup of championship, breaking the stranglehold that the ‘traditional counties’ had on the semi-final berths. We need more teams at the top table — but we need those games to be competitive, too.

And yet, I feel like there is much that the GAA can learn from its female codes, particularly in this era of integration. We tend to think of the process as a one-way street — the GAA will lovingly subsume camogie and LGFA, granting equal access to pitches, expenses and esteem. But there are ways in which camogie and LGFA can impact hurling and Gaelic football for the better, too. 

I’m still surprised that all four codes have not adopted ladies football’s major innovation — the hooter/countdown clock — which gives overworked refs one less job to do. There’s also an argument for doing away with the crouch-lift, an unlovely skill which ladies football dispensed with early on. 

Let the lads pick up the ball, for heaven’s sake, and if they want extra kudos, they can still flick it up into their hands while on the run — now there’s a skill worth preserving.

Camogie has been running in its current structure since 2012, with two groups involved in a round-robin — a forerunner of hurling’s acclaimed round-robin system, introduced in 2018. The main difference is that in camogie it’s an open draw, while hurling still has notional provincial links (to wit: Munster in one group, every other hurling county in the other). 

Given Munster hurling’s dominance in recent years, I would love to see an All-Ireland championship trialled as an open draw, a move which would restore balance to the championship and create space for new rivalries to bloom.

As for the provincial championships, let’s bring them back to their straight knockout roots, and run them off as the traditional cup competitions they are at heart.