Ulster Senior Camogie Championship final
CASSIE Fitzpatrick was flying around this time three years ago. Down had turned around a poor league campaign and won their first Ulster title since 2003. The summer of 2018 was opening out with possibilities for the Down midfielder.
“Then right after the Ulster final, I was injured in a challenge game and that put me out for the summer that Down went on to reach the All-Ireland final. It was very frustrating," Fitzpatrick said.
“And it got worse because after the All-Ireland, Clonduff started on a run that took them to the Ulster title and I missed that as well.
“While they were training as a group and winning, I was doing my own training and it is hard to train for seven months on your own. I think a lot of people enjoyed slowing down a bit at the start of Covid last year. But for me the novelty soon wore off and I wanted back playing camogie.”
The then UUJ accountancy student forced her way back into the Clonduff side for the All-Ireland series and treasures the medal she won in Croke Park in March 2019.
“If the truth is told, I probably wasn’t 100 per cent ready when the All-Ireland came around. But how often does your club get to an All-Ireland final?”
That All-Ireland club series was followed by another assault by Down on the intermediate championship that ended at the semi-final stage, as did Clonduff’s attempt to retain their national title. It meant that the county players in the Clonduff side had been flat out with club and county from the start of 2018.
“Yes, I would say that Covid gave a lot of them a break they needed, but you still want to be playing, don’t you?” says the now accountant at Mooney and Matthews in Armagh.
Since their return to action this time last year, Clonduff have retained their county title and Down have won the All-Ireland Intermediate and Division Two double. The county re-entering the All-Ireland senior championship hasn’t really been a surprise for Fizpatrick.
“If you had suggested to me pre-2018 that we would be playing the top counties in the senior championship, I wouldn’t have believed it. That opportunity didn’t exist back then. I came into a Down team that was having some bad days, turning up for league matches with just 15 players and getting trounced.
“However once we turned the corner in 2018, things have snowballed. We have a great set-up at county level now. The best players in the county are in the senior panel. We are all committed and the competition for places in the team is fierce.”
That competition has meant that Fitzpatrick has found it difficult to hold on to a place in the team. She started the league at midfield in the Antrim game and played in other games at corner-forward although when the league final came around she found herself on the bench while younger sister Beth has staked a claim at wing defence.
Down now enter an intense four weekends, beginning with an Ulster final this Saturday against Antrim. Then there are the three group games in the All-Ireland senior championship against Waterford, Cork and Dublin with the Clonduff player determined to get into the selectors’ head for all these games.
“I am hoping I get a chance to play this weekend in the Ulster final. I want to prove myself against Antrim and then get to play against the senior teams.”
