No excuses from Prendergast after Cats' championship exit
Tyler Of Of Player Camogie, Month In For July Miller/sportsfile Pic: Her Prendergast Pwc The Award July, Aoife Gpa With
Aoife Prendergast says Kilkenny won't take the easy way out and blame their shock camogie championship loss to Dublin on being in 'transition'.
The 2022 All-Ireland winners suffered a surprise four-point All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Dublin at Croke Park on Saturday, ending their season.
Prendergast top scored for the reigning Leinster champions but was still powerless to prevent back-to-back summer exits at the quarter-final stage.
Key players including Denise Gaule, Claire Phelan and Miriam Walsh were absent for various reasons but captain Prendergast refused to blame the defeat on inexperience.
"We are disappointed but everyone is talking about us being a team in transition and we don't look at it like that," said the PwC GPA Player of the Month in camogie for June.
"We as players will not look at it as a team in transition, we are the players who are there at the moment and we try to do the best we can for Kilkenny camogie and for the jersey we are wearing.
"We lost a few players at the start of the year but people come and people go, there are always girls in Kilkenny camogie to come in. Kilkenny camogie is in a good place and there are always girls there to step up and to try to fill those jerseys.
"Look, we can't be making excuses now that we have lost a few players, other players need to stand up overall."
The Kilkenny defeat is the latest indication that the so called 'big three' of camogie - Kilkenny, Cork and Galway - is no longer. Cork and Galway are still alive in the Championship but the emergence of Dublin and National League winners Tipperary as credible contenders has shaken things up considerably.
"Even over the last few years, whether there was a big three or not, those other teams were always still competing," said Prendergast, an All-Ireland club winner with Dicksboro over winter.
"It was not as if you were going out guaranteed to be beating them. They probably did not get the credit they deserved but look, it is definitely hugely open now. Any game that you go into, you are up against huge competition."