Rewind two years. All-Ireland camogie final media day and there’s question after question for Brian Dowling about pressure, from stepping into the shoes of the great Ann Downey as Kilkenny manager to simply having to win the 2020 Championship.
Kilkenny had experienced three final failures in a row before that. Losing a fourth didn’t bear thinking about.
There is more pressure now apparently as Kilkenny prepare for Sunday’s All-Ireland camogie decider against Cork, a terrific opportunity to bring the O’Duffy Cup back to Noreside.
[ Claire Phelan and Kilkenny embracing another final challengeOpens in new window ]
Dowling agrees with it all, to a point. But it’s not actual pressure he realises, not the sort of life pressures he and his coach, Tommy Shefflin, have been experiencing ever since March when they and their families were hit by extreme tragedy.
On the first Friday of that month, Tommy’s brother, Paul, just 41 and a father of four, died suddenly while out running in Clonmel. Less than three weeks later, a house fire at the home of Dowling’s elderly uncles, Dominic and Oliver Brennan in Jenkinstown, cost Oliver his life and left Dominic homeless.
“It was tough,” said Dowling. “In fairness, the camogie really helps things and the girls being there has been really helpful to go and train and stuff like that, it helps take your mind off it.
“Obviously to win an All-Ireland would really top off the whole year for us. That (grief) will never go away, especially for the likes of Tommy who lost his brother, that will never go away but I’m sure it will help in a small way if we get over the line against Cork.”
A GoFundMe page was set up to help Dowling’s uncle Dominic rebuild his life from scratch and raised tens of thousands of euros. Among the first to put their hands in their pockets or simply offer their condolences were camogie and hurling teams and players that Dowling had been doing battle with for years, Cork included.
[ All-Ireland camogie final: Cork under no illusions that improvement is necessaryOpens in new window ]
“A lot of the Cork players and Matthew (Twomey, manager) contacted me and offered their condolences,” recalled the former Kilkenny hurler. “That meant a lot at the time and they did not have to do that. For 60 minutes on the pitch, we will be rivals but we will shake hands afterwards.”
A 15th All-Ireland camogie title success for Kilkenny would clearly provide a welcome distraction. And for a while on Sunday, it may even feel like real pressure as Kilkenny and Cork do battle all over again.
The nuts and bolts of it are that Kilkenny are slight favourites but Cork beat them when they last met in the Championship, in the 2021 All-Ireland semi-finals. The counties have also contested five finals since 2009, Cork winning four of them.
Kilkenny lost the 2017 and 2018 deciders to Cork, before coming up short to Galway in 2019. That’s when Dowling took over from Downey.
“To lose four-in-a-row would have been absolutely disastrous,” he said.
Kilkenny, of course, finally got over the line in 2020, albeit in an empty Croke Park that December at the height of the pandemic restrictions.
“I think we did not see the girls for four months after that because everything was in lockdown again,” said Dowling.
“When we came back from 2020, it was very, very strange, we were All-Ireland champions but we never got to celebrate it properly.
“Last year was a challenge to be honest, I think we were flat for most of the year. We were very competitive, we only lost two games by a point to Galway and Cork but we just never really hit our top form.
“Coming back this year, it was kind of like a new lease of life really. It did take us a while to get going, we struggled a little bit in the league for form and in challenge games and things like that to find our rhythm but, look, we have kind of set up a new team, we had to restructure it from last year and it just kind of fell into place and things are going well now so far.”
Injuries, retirements and drop outs have forced Dowling to shift around his chess pieces this season.
“I think five of the backs from last year against Cork are gone through injury, travelling, retirements and things like that, pregnancy, there is a lot going on there,” he said. “Some girls made up their own mind but I suppose the ones we think of are Aoife Doyle and Kellyann Doyle, they did their cruciates this year, two sisters. That was not their choice, they wanted to be here, unfortunate for them that they are gone.
“It is tough but look, maybe if you have the same team all the time things get a bit stale. There is a bit of freshness there I think, and we had that in 2020 when we lost players and we brought in new girls. They were brilliant for us that year and it is the same thing this year, the new girls have stepped up.”
