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 she tells why she believes the current Down side can get back to that level...
By the time Deirdre Hughes had delivered a five-star performance in the 1992 final, the travel was starting to complicate Joan Tobin’s relationship with her native county while another relationship with an East Belfast man was developing towards marriage.
“I had started a new job in Belfast and the hours were not just as flexible. Bernie McNally, as well as being the Queen’s manager, was also the Down manager and she was encouraging me to transfer.
“But it was not just a clean transfer. I took time out and my future husband and I decided to do a bit of travelling and it wasn’t until 1997 that I actually picked up my camogie career again with Drumaness and joined the Down panel.”
Down had lost two All-Ireland Intermediate finals as well as a couple of league finals in the years between 1991 and 1997. As with Queen’s earlier in the decade, the now married Joan Henderson seemed to provide the missing link.
“Tipperary won the Intermediate that first year, but Down were not too far off the mark.
“Like Queen’s they had plenty of leaders, especially the Liatroim players who had won a couple Ulster club championship – Donna (Greeran) and Nuala (Magee) in defence, Majella Murray and Mo Mac (Máirín McAleenan) in attack, Deirdre Savage, the Hynds sisters and then younger players like Jenny Braniff and Edel Mason coming through.
“They were very ambitious. The likes of Mo Mac was in a gym all winter doing Strength and Conditioning. No one was doing that in camogie in the mid-nineties.
“And Bernie had a good management team around her – Paul Welch and a group of parents, great fund-raisers and everything.
“We had a couple of sessions with a sports psychologist. It was something that top GAA teams were doing at the time.
“They were very important to our development as I think women need to feel well about themselves to play their best. Those sessions at the Dub made us think deeper about the game.
“We even flew to play Cork in the Intermediate final in 1998. Like, no camogie team was doing that at the time, certainly not an Intermediate team!”
With the Division Two league title in the bag from earlier in the season, Down beat Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn to win the Intermediate All-Ireland title for the first time.
“As a Tipp person, beating Cork was special – but doing it in Páirc Uí Rinn made it extra special.
“It was a great game and a fantastic weekend and six days later Liatroim went up to Dunloy and won their third Ulster club title in four seasons. There was never a club v county issue with those girls.”
That put Down into senior camogie. But there was something missing the following year according to Henderson.
“We still fought our way through to an All-Ireland semi-final – against Tipperary – but we didn’t perform on the day and were well beaten. The score-line doesn’t reflect us at all.
“Every team has peaks and troughs, I suppose. The game changed from 12 to 15-a-side that year and some teams coped better than others.
“Finding the three extra players was one thing, but speed learning the dynamics of the larger pitch and different lay-out of a team was another.
“Tipperary went on and won their first ever senior All-Ireland, beating Kilkenny in the final and they won five of the next six All-Irelands.
“I think getting Michael Cleary, an All-Ireland winning hurler from 1991, as manager was the key. He had them playing like a hurling team while most other teams were just finding their way.
“Defeat to Tipp was a huge personal disappointment of course. But I was really pleased for the girls that I had played alongside, like my cousin Jovita Delaney, club-mates like Tríona Bonnar.
“All told, I think five or six of the team that played with me in the 1992 Junior final were on the winning senior team seven years later.”
That Tipp semi-final was to be Joan Henderson’s last game for Down. The first of her four daughters was born the following year.
It was also the last time a team from Ulster contested an All-Ireland senior semi-final.
“There were a couple of us stepped down after that game and then Mo Mac did her cruciate, Edel had transferred to Antrim. There were still good players left, but not enough to sustain a senior campaign.
“The current Down team looked very strong in their championship games last year. Like us they had taken a few years to actually break through.
“They seem to have grown stronger from those setbacks in 2018 and 2019 both on and they seem to have a professional approach off the field too.
“They were right to opt for senior this year and I think they should do well.”
Joan’s daughters all played for Bredagh, although the older pair, both at university, are not as keen to pursue that sporting path as their mother was 30 years earlier.
“The two younger girls are playing away with Bredagh under-age teams and I was coaching the under 12s last year, probably move up this year when things get going.
“I meet teammates from the nineties at games because they have kids the same age as mine.”
Any regrets that she didn’t stick it out with Tipperary to win the O’Duffy Cup?
“Ach, no. That was the path that my life took. After I left Tipperary I wasn’t really intending to play for another team.
“ But I had great craic with Down for those three seasons, won an All-Ireland Intermediate and played in a senior semi-final.”
