Amy O’Connor’s express hat-trick ends Cork’s heartbreak as they claim 29th All-Ireland camogie title

Cork 5-13 Waterford 0-9

Amy O’Connor produced one of the great All-Ireland final performances as Cork returned to camogie’s summit. If this season was a year of redemption for Cork, the final was a day of days for their captain.

O’Connor scored 3-7 from 10 shots, including a whirlwind hat-trick in just 119 seconds. The three goals immediately after half-time ended the game as a contest and ensured the Rebels would collect their 29th All-Ireland senior title on a record-breaking day at Croke Park.

Cork’s 19-point victory was the largest winning margin in an All-Ireland senior camogie decider since 1959, with this game played in front of 30,191 spectators – the largest ever attendance for a stand-alone camogie decider.

And they were treated to what is believed to be the fastest hat-trick ever in an All-Ireland senior final across all four codes – O’Connor netting her three goals in just 1 minute and 59 seconds. The first one hit the back of the Waterford net with the clock at 32.44 and the third at 34.43.

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Antrim’s Dervla Cosgrove needed just 84 seconds to score a hat-trick in the All-Ireland junior decider last year.

Speaking afterwards, O’Connor said she was so caught up in the game that she wasn’t aware she had scored a hat-trick until it was mentioned to her at the final whistle. On Saturday afternoon the St Vincent’s player went down to her local pitch to puck a few balls.

“I went practising frees,” she said. “I don’t think one went over the bar.”

But everything she touched at Croke Park on Sunday turned to gold.

“I suppose you do have a day where everything you hit goes over and it’s nice to have those days because they don’t come around too often,” she said. “It was nice to get one of those days today.

“Very proud day for me obviously. I come from quite a small junior club on the north side of the city, we haven’t had too much success at club level so it is nice to be able to do something like this.”

This is Cork’s first O’Duffy Cup triumph since 2018 and helps bury the heartache of losing the last two finals – to Galway in 2021 and Kilkenny in 2022. On their way to this success, Cork vanquished both Galway and Kilkenny. It extends their lead in camogie’s roll of honour to 29 senior titles, ahead of Dublin on 26.

It was only Waterford’s second appearance in the senior decider and their first since 1945, but it never looked like a day the Deise were about to claim a first All-Ireland senior camogie title.

Cork 1-9 to 0-3 at half-time and O’Connor’s three strikes on the restart killed off the contest.

Waterford only had three scorers over the course of the game, with Beth Carton accounting for seven of their nine points. However, the De La Salle player drilled a penalty wide in first-half injury-time at a stage when Waterford were just about clinging on.

“Massive relief,” said Cork manager Matthew Twomey afterwards. “To lose the All-Ireland last year was very hard but we learned so much last year.

“We had an idea ourselves how we could change it, we were very lucky that we got a coach like Liam Cronin. He’s meticulous. This year we went in a different direction, it was more kind of forward thinking.

“Even in the dark days we were able to analyse the game and see exactly where we went wrong. It was tweaking rather than pressing the nuclear bomb. After losing previous finals, I tried to block it out of my head all week. It is a massive relief.

“Cork haven’t won it since 2018, we’ve 32 on the panel, 12 have All-Ireland medals, 20 hadn’t. They have now. That was a massive motivation. We had a wealth of experience but the rest of the players brought a fierce hunger.

“We were just extremely lucky. We got on kind of a roll, it was like a train.”

Meabh Cahalane, of the Cahalane dynasty, did a fine job picking up Niamh Rockett and holding her to just a single point while in the middle of the field Cork dominated the physical exchanges.

Sorcha McCartan, daughter of Down football great Gregory, became the first player from Ulster to win an All-Ireland senior camogie medal in 44 years. This is McCartan’s second year playing for the Rebels and she scored their first goal against Waterford, volleying home after an unselfish pass by Katrina Mackey to put Cork 1-7 to 0-1 ahead.

Carton drilled a penalty wide of the post in first-half injury-time but if there was a sense the game had already slipped from Waterford at the break, then O’Connor’s blitzkrieg after the interval confirmed Cork would not be losing a third straight final.

[ Denis Walsh: Ruthless Cork crush Waterford’s dreams to claim camogie glory ]

Fiona Keating finished the goalscoring spree in the 50th minute on a glorious day for the Rebels at Croke Park.

“We’ve never really been in that position before,” added O’Connor. “It’s always been helter-skelter until the final whistle so it was probably nice to kind of enjoy the last few minutes.

“There were 62, 63 minutes on the clock and you know there’s a huge deficit so it was highly unlikely they were going to come back so it was nice to take it all in. It was a huge feeling of satisfaction.”

A day of days for O’Connor. A year of redemption for Cork.

CORK: Amy Lee; Pamela Mackey, Meabh Cahalane, Libby Coppinger; Aoife Healy, Laura Tracey, Izzy O’Regan; Hannah Looney (0-1), Laura Hayes; Chloe Sigerson (0-1, one free), Fiona Keating (1-0), Saoirse McCarthy; Amy O’Connor (3-7, 0-5 from frees), Katrina Mackey (0-2), Sorcha McCartan (1-1).

Subs: Cliona Healy for Hayes (44 mins); Orla Cronin for McCartan (47); Ashling Thompson for McCarthy (51); Orlaith Cahalane (0-1) for Sigerson (52); Meabh Murphy for P Mackey (53).

WATERFORD: Brianna O’Regan; Keeley Corbett Barry, Laoise Forrest (0-1), Kate Lynch; Vikki Falconer, Orla Hickey, Clodagh Carroll; Abby Flynn, Lorraine Bray; Mairéad O’Brien, Beth Carton (0-7, five frees), Mairead Power; Annie Fitzgerald, Niamh Rockett (0-1), Rachael Walsh.

Subs: Iona Heffernan for Falconer (5 mins); Bevin Bowdren for Power (h-t); Tara Power for O’Brien (41); Clara Griffin for Carroll (42); Shauna Fitzgerald for Lynch (54).

Referee: John Dermody (Westmeath).