FIT again, in strong form and the heartbeat of the Cork camogie team but will Ashling Thompson start Sunday’s All-Ireland senior final?
It is a welcome selection headache for Cork manager Matthew Twomey, who must have been won over by the impressive return to full fitness of the veteran midfielder.
Thompson walked off the Croke Park pitch in disillusion after missing a stoppage-time opportunity to level last year’s Glen Dimplex decider against Kilkenny.
Weeks later, the Milford colossus suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury but returned to feature as a substitute in last month’s quarter and semi-final wins over holders Kilkenny and great rivals Galway.
Thompson’s steadying influence around the middle third was clear in the semi-final win over Galway, who’d previously beaten Cork three times this year, leaving Twomey with a conundrum this week.
Cork captain Amy O’Connor said she’s in the dark about whether Thompson will start against Waterford but praised her recovery from the career threatening injury.
“Ashling Thompson has reacted like a professional athlete in dealing with her injury since it happened to her,” said O’Connor.
“Credit where credit is due, she was absolutely phenomenal, so regimental in her recovery and I’m delighted for her because she’s flying in training. She looks great, she looks sharp. She really, really went about it in the right way.”
Thompson left the field moments after that late, late wide in last year’s final and cut a broken figure, only returning later to join her colleagues on the field as Kilkenny celebrated their O’Duffy Cup triumph.
“If you were to ask me who I would want to have the ball in that situation, it would be Ashling,” said O’Connor of the long-range score attempt.
“She was very, very unlucky with the shot. I think she took it hard. But she’s long enough in the game now to know that these things happen.”
Last month, Thompson’s partner, Limerick hurling star Darragh O’Donovan, celebrated All-Ireland success at Croke Park. The expectation is that there’ll be more celebrations on Sunday for the couple though O’Connor baulked at the suggestion that Cork’s semi-final win could possibly be considered the real final.
Opponents Waterford will be featuring in their first final since 1945 and have never won the title.
“You can’t look at it that way,” O’Connor insisted. “You’d be a fool to look at it that way. Waterford are a very, very good team. The three top teams, who have traditionally met in the final, were on the same side of the draw. But you can’t look past Waterford. It’s going to be a very, very difficult game for us.
“Being in Munster, we have come across them a huge amount. This is the first year we haven’t played them too often funnily enough. We only played them once.”
As it happens, Cork lost that encounter, a Munster quarter-final at Pairc ui Chaoimh in late April. It was the first time in more than a dozen outings that they’d beaten Cork.
Waterford went on to lose the subsequent provincial semi-final heavily to Tipperary but bounced back with a perfect record in their All-Ireland group and they gained revenge with a Nowlan Park win over Tipp to secure this Sunday’s showdown.
Cork deserve credit too for a battling campaign, pulling off some huge wins despite being stripped of dual players for several games.
“We had three dual clashes this year,” said four-time All-Ireland winner O’Connor.
“It meant unfortunately that we were without four players for one game and two for two other games. It’s not ideal for preparations.”
Some on Leeside wondered if the dual clashes and the failure to re-arrange those fixtures amounted to a punishment of sorts, for the strong stance Cork took regarding the All-Star trip protest earlier this year.
“Ah no, I’d take no notice of that,” said O’Connor. “It was what it was. There were (potential) solutions along the road regarding fixtures, to push out one game or change the timing of another, but it just didn’t work out.”
