It comes full circle. On Sunday when Cork play Galway in the All-Ireland senior camogie final, Linda Mellerick will be back on the Croke Park pitch, having bid it farewell 22 years ago.
Kellie Harrington went out at the top this week, but knowing when to leave the party is a tricky skill to learn. Rather than skipping off towards the sunset with shiny medals dangling from their necks, most sports stars tend to take their leave by hobbling off the stage, battered and beaten.
Mellerick was one of the few who skipped. After Cork beat Tipperary in the 2002 All-Ireland final, the Glen Rovers player parked the intercounty game. A two-time Player of the Year, Mellerick walked away with six All-Ireland titles and 10 National Leagues.
Just two years after she retired, Mellerick was included in the Camogie Team of the Century, cementing her place as one of the greatest camogie players of all time.
She captained Cork to two All-Ireland final victories – in 1993 and 1997. On both occasions they beat Galway.
As part of the Camogie Association’s 120-year celebrations, former All-Ireland-winning captains will be brought on the pitch and introduced to the crowd at half-time of the intermediate final at Croke Park on Sunday.
The senior decider is a Cork-Galway affair. The intermediate showdown sees Cork play Kilkenny. The Cork full back in that contest will be Mellerick’s niece, Niamh O’Leary. It’s almost tinny to suggest the stars have aligned.
“We had a great rivalry with Galway during the ‘90s, there was very little between us,” recalls Mellerick, who made her Cork senior debut in 1985 and had to wait seven years and endure three consecutive All-Ireland final defeats before getting over the line.
Lifting the O’Duffy Cup in 1993 and 1997 remain among the highlights of her career but, when she thinks back to that period, the final she remembers most is the one they lost against Galway in 1996. The pain of losing has even left the scoreline stitched to her memory.
“We had won in 1995 and we were hot favourites to win in 1996 but Galway came, I wouldn’t say out of nowhere, but they swiped it from us, they got four goals that day and beat us 4-8 to 1-15,” recalls Mellerick.
That was Galway’s first All-Ireland senior triumph – and three more have followed, in 2013, 2019 and 2021. Cork sit on top of camogie’s roll of honour with 29 titles, and are aiming to retain the O’Duffy Cup this season.
Galway fans are hoping the county can avoid a third All-Ireland senior final defeat in as many weeks – having lost the men’s and women’s senior football deciders recently. In fact, it has only ever happened on one occasion that a county lost all three finals in the same year – when Cork suffered that fate in 1956.
Galway are 3-1 outsiders on Sunday. But they were underdogs in 1996 too when they upstaged Cork in the final, so the Rebels don’t have far to look if searching for lessons. Still, Mellerick feels this time is different.
“Cork are strong favourites. I think Galway started to go through a bit of a transition last year and they have lost another couple this season through injury,” she adds.
“They had dominated Cork for a number of years but the tide started to turn last year when Cork beat them in the All-Ireland semi-final, and I think the gap has actually widened since.”
Injuries to Méabh Cahalane and Libby Coppinger during the season didn’t seem to weaken the team. Cork’s direct style of play and strong running game have caused problems for teams all season, including Galway. When the sides met at Páirc Uí Chaoimh at the end of June in the group stages, the home team blew away their opponents, 2-16 to 1-7.
“All the stats lead to a Cork victory. Galway will put it up to Cork but I still see Cork winning by four or five,” adds Mellerick.
Pin that to the Galway dressingroom wall!
But Mellerick has genuine, wider concerns about camogie right now. She cares.
When you include Sunday’s final, 12 of the last 13 senior camogie deciders will have been contested from a pool of just three counties – Cork, Kilkenny, Galway. Waterford broke the triumvirate last year but, for their temerity, they got sent back down the road with a 19-point beating as a stark reminder of their place in the game.
Looking at the camogie landscape, there doesn’t appear to be a new county poised to make a genuine, concerted breakthrough to reinvigorate the senior championship.
Before this year’s semi-finals I heard a programme going on about two exciting semi-finals coming up, but I knew Cork were going to annihilate Dublin. There are only so many times you can fool people
“I would have huge concerns about it to be honest,” adds Mellerick. “We can say Tipperary are closing the gap and Waterford are closing the gap but when it comes down to it they’re not really.
“Yes, they might have got stronger than the likes of Clare and Limerick but have they closed the gap at the other end? And now Kilkenny might be heading for a bit of a transition too.
“For me, looking at Cork’s runaway successes this year, I’d worry the gap is widening. I have serious concerns – the game needs Wexford, Tipperary, Limerick, Waterford, and it needs them seriously contending – not a token ‘Ah, they are making great strides’ kind of thing.
“Before this year’s semi-finals I heard a programme going on about two exciting semi-finals coming up, but I knew Cork were going to annihilate Dublin. There are only so many times you can fool people.”
Cork hammered the Dubs, 4-17 to 0-9.
Mellerick has other concerns too, including the proposed changes to the premier junior and intermediate championships that will impact Cork and Kilkenny fielding at those grades.
Post retirement, Mellerick continued to have skin in the game. Just two years after stepping away from Cork, she was asked by the Camogie Association to be an ambassador for the game on Leeside.
Prompted by the role and feeling she better do something to justify the moniker, Mellerick contacted the Evening Echo to try nudge them towards covering some college camogie fixtures. Before she knew it, the former Cork captain found herself writing previews, match reports and columns on camogie for the paper.
For the last two decades Mellerick and Mary Newman have been driving the coverage and promotion of camogie on Leeside. But Mellerick stepped away from writing this year and so this Sunday she will travel to an All-Ireland final merely as a supporter.
“I’m looking forward to going up on the train with family, meeting friends above and watching my niece in the intermediate final. We’ll be brought out on the pitch as well, it’ll be nice, it’ll be different.”
On the day she played her last game for Cork, Linda Mellerick grabbed a brief moment of reflection after the final whistle. The O’Duffy Cup was going back to Leeside, for the last leg of a playing journey there was no better companion for the trip home. The time was right.
“I knew I was retiring,” she recalls. “I knew that was the last time I would grace the pitch as a player.
“I think I played in 13 finals, lost seven, won six. I had my fair share of heartache there but I was so grateful for what I got and what the game had given me, so when I walked off that day I said a silent thank you and goodbye. And off I went.”
But she’ll be back on Sunday.
As will Cork. Same as it ever was.
