TIPPERARY’S Joan Tobin suffered last minute heartache in the All-Ireland Junior final 30 years ago against Down. But she was later to win All-Ireland honours with both counties before ending her inter-county career in 1999 wearing the Red and Black of Down in an All-Ireland senior semi-final against her former team-mates. Today, in the first of a two-part feature, she recalls that sporting journey...
THE 1991 All-Ireland Junior final seemed to be ebbing away from Tipperary. Down took early control and led by 2-8 to 0-6 at half time. But they worked their way back and Joan Tobin fired to the net in the 60th minute to put the Munster side ahead for the first time.
“Bonnie McGreevey! I could have strangled her in Croke Park that day,” she can laugh it off now.
“Bonnie was at full-forward but came out to centre-forward for the poc out. She caught it, turned and ran. The point for a draw was the easy option. She didn’t take it and smashed the sliotar to the roof of our net. We couldn’t recover.”
“The headlines the next day were all about her. They could have been about me!” she jokes.
There were several sub-plots to that end of September showdown in Croke Park.
Tipperary had claimed the hurling title on the first Sunday of the month. Down came from nowhere to win the Sam Maguire Cup on the third Sunday. The media in both counties had built the camogie final up as “the winner takes the double.”
“We had lost the 1990 final and, if you like, Down had come from nowhere to reach that final as well. But that Down team was probably more experienced than we were and they taught us a big lesson that day.”
It was a lesson Tipperary absorbed as they bounced back to take the 1992 title with a 6-13 to 2-7 win over Galway. Joan Tobin again was at centre-forward, but already her days with Tipperary looked numbered.
Cashel-native Tobin was a player with a star reputation in a rising Tipperary side. She had won back-to-back Ashbourne Cup medals in her first two years in UCD. In 1990 she came north to take a Masters in Engineering in Queen’s.
“There were a few options open to me that summer. I had got to know a couple of the Queen’s players through the Ashbourne and I got a call from Siobhán McErlean early that summer. She was working in USA and told me there was a job going. So I went over and I basically missed Tipp’s run to the final that year.
“When I came home I opted to do the Masters in Queen’s and I met up with their camogs.”
There was of course the change in culture for the Munster import.
“The girls looked after me. I was a bit naïve, walking about the Ormeau Road area with a hurl in my hand. They quickly told me to get a hockey bag and carry the hurl hidden inside. Then there were the check-points and the delays caused by Orange parades.”
Tobin though was to prove the missing piece in Bernie McNally’s jig-saw puzzle that saw Queen’s become the first Ulster side to win the Ashbourne Cup.
“Bernie was a very innovative coach. We would have played a lot of challenge games in preparation for the Ashbourne, like going down to Dublin and playing two or three games against county or club teams, a game on a Sunday morning and then stop-off at Laytown beach on the way home for a full training session.
“We needed that stamina built up for a weekend tournament. It was a really tough Ashbourne in Galway. I was double-marked all weekend. I suppose I was one of the few Queen’s players other university teams knew, but they soon found out that we had a super team.
“Deirdri O’Doherty was a great leader – she was the first camogie player I saw catching high balls wearing black leather gloves! You had the McCorry sisters, Mary Black, Monica McCartan. Great, great players.
“There is maybe a tinge of regret that we did not retain the Ashbourne in 1992, but we were beaten narrowly in the final by UUJ. Again they had super players like Grace McMullan, Christine McCamphill, Siobhán Convery, Catriona Higgins.”
Tobin was continuing to play for Tipperary, but the commute from Belfast was getting increasingly more difficult.
“It wasn’t that bad the first year (1991). I was on placement with an Engineering firm in Tandragee and they were keen to expand down south. They knew I would be down at weekends to train and play and they organised for me to take off Monday and visit firms down there to look for orders.
“Shortly after I started we got a big order with a Kildare firm and I could work visits around training days and that helped a lot
“We got to the All-Ireland final and met Down of course and by that stage I knew a number of their players. I was sharing accommodation in Belfast with Teresa Allen and she was my direct opponent in Croke Park.
“When Tipp came back in the second half and I scored that goal, I thought we had won.”
