Two Siobhán McGrath goals were not enough for Galway to overcome Cork who reached their fifth straight national final and a third Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior camogie championship semi-final by 0-15 to 2-6.
Huge performances from Saoirse McCarthy, Libby Coppinger and Hannah Looney, as well as four points and a number of major contributions off the bench, ensured the Rebels secured a first triumph over their rivals after eight consecutive losses, three of which were this season.
In a tense contest throughout, Galway refused to yield as epitomised by Róisín Black and Aoife Donohue, but Galway manager Cathal Murray acknowledged the better team had prevailed, although unhappy with some of referee Ray Kelly’s decisions.
“It’s tough,” said Murray, a double manager of the year. “Cork was probably the better team to be honest about it, but we stayed in the game all the time. Best thing I can always say about the girls, they showed unbelievable heart and unbelievable character and we brought it down to a one-score game near the end.
“Our girls are a savage team. There were some unbelievable individual performances out there. We stuck with it, we just didn’t get the breaks. I thought the referee was very hard on us in the first half. I don’t give out about referees, but I thought he was really hard on us in the first half.
“Even in the second half, Aoife Donohue at a crucial point in the game came out, Aoife Healy had no hurl, I don’t know how it wasn’t a free.
“At the end of the day that’s just an excuse. We probably weren’t good enough and the two goals kept us in it. We had other chances as well. Ailish [O’Reilly] hit the crossbar in the first half.
Cork are a super team, he said. "We’ve probably had the upper hand on them the last few years. That was always going to change. They’ve been coming and they had super players off the bench as well in the last ten minutes when they needed them, so best of luck to them.
“It’s going to be a great final and unfortunately we’re not there, but the girls, as they always do, died with their boots on.”
SCORERS FOR CORK : A O’Connor 0-7(5fs, 1 45 ); K Mackey, C Healy 0-2 each; L Hayes, O Cahalane, C Sigerson(f ), S McCarthy 0-1 each. SCORERS FOR GALWAY : C Dolan 0-4(3fs ); S McGrath 2-0; A Donohue 0-2
CORK: A Lee, M Murphy, L Coppinger, P Mackey, M Cahalane, L Treacy, I O’Regan, A Healy, H Looney, C Sigerson, F Keating, S McCarthy, S McCartan, K Mackey, A O’Connor. Subs: L Hayes for Murphy (ht ), O Cronin for McCartan (40 ); A Thompson for O’Regan (49 )
GALWAY : F Ryan, S Healy, R Black, D Higgins, R Hanniffy, E Helebert, A Keane, A Donohue, S Gardiner, S Spellman, C Dolan, N Hanniffy, N McPeake, S McGrath, A O’Reilly. Subs: S Rabbitte for McPeake (33 ), O McGrath for Gardiner (50 )
REFEREE : Ray Kelly (Kildare )
