Amy O'Connor says Cork deserved more Camogie All-Star nominations
Tuesday 29 October 2019 18:35, UK
It has been a disappointing year on the intercounty front for Amy O'Connor, but it finished on a bright note as she sealed her first ever All-Star award last week.
The Cork camogie team suffered an All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Galway to bring their three-in-a-row bid to an abrupt halt, but the Knocknaheeney star was named on the team of the year, becoming the Rebelettes' sole representative on the side.
Indeed, in total only four of the 45 nominees were from Cork, and O'Connor felt the Munster county ought to had a greater representation on the original shortlist.
"We lost to Galway by a point and we won all the rest of our games fairly comfortably. I did think it was an unusual situation to only give us four nominations and to give other counties much more," she said.
"That's not to say that the girls from Tipperary didn't deserve their nominations. I know people were saying they got nine and we got four but we beat them three times; I'm not saying they didn't deserve their nominations but I just thought maybe we should have had more.
"Maybe it's because people aren't going to enough games, I don't know. It was a bit disappointing. Maybe it's because they see that we get so many All-Stars and so many nominations they decided to not give them to us - I don't think that's right either. I do think that we deserved more nominations than the four.
"To be honest, I don't know who picks them, I don't know how they are picked, I don't know what the criteria is.
"We've beaten Tipperary three times this year. That's not taking away from them either, they deserve their nominations."
O'Connor took her place amongst the game's elite at the award ceremony, which is not too shabby for a club junior player.
"It has been going around for years that you have to be playing for a senior club, but at the end of the day, you're with the intercounty team for nine months of the year," O'Connor said.
"It doesn't make a difference if you're playing with a junior club. If you're with the club maybe 10 times in the year, max, that doesn't actually make any difference. So I completely disagree with people who say that.
"I know (Cork manager) Paudie Murray is in full support of me playing for the last few years for a junior club.
"There's players out there that are playing junior and are being overlooked probably, because they are playing with a junior club, and maybe that's why they feel the need to transfer to a senior club.
"But I always say it would never mean anything to me to win something with a senior club. I'd rather win a junior with my own club, my own people, my own team-mates that I grew up with."
One of the proudest moments of her career to date came when she returned to St Vincent's with her All-Star trophy last week.
"I knew that my own team, my junior team, they wanted to see the trophy so I was bringing it up to the club to show the chairman. But when I arrived there was a guard of honour, a piper, and hundreds and hundreds of people there," she explained.
"It was unbelievable. No other club in the country would do it for their players. To be fair, it is a big thing. For our club, it was the first ever All-Star - male, female, football, camogie.
"So it was a huge deal for my club, but they are a huge honour and I think they should be celebrated more. I'm very glad that I'm from a club that's willing to do that for me. It was brilliant. It was unbelievable."
Perhaps the most special aspect of the reception was the number of children in attendance.
"It's brilliant to see," she smiled. "When I was growing up, I didn't have that. I had to look elsewhere, outside of my club. I had to look at the likes of Gemma O'Connor from the Barrs, Orla Cotter from St Catherine's. But they can now look within their club that it is possible for them to do it, if they put in the hours on the pitch.
"I said it at the homecoming that I love my club because it doesn't matter that I'm a woman. I'm treated exactly as I would be if I was a man. And then say even 'I'm Amy O'Connor and I won an All-Star last week.' It doesn't matter, because I'm treated the same as a six-year-old that's just joined.
"I love that about the club, it's a really inclusive club - everyone is treated equally. All the men's teams treat me with the same respect as they would their own. I love that about my club."
