MATTHEW HURLEY caught up with Ballinascarthy captain Annie Condon after they won the 2024 Cork premier junior A championship
MATTHEW HURLEY: Congrats on a great season, Annie! Winning the county title and promotion to the intermediate ranks for next year was a superb achievement – would you consider this year to be the best of your career?
ANNIE CONDON: Yeah, it’s definitely up there alright. It’s such a great feeling winning with your club as you’re playing alongside the girls you’ve grown up with and went to school with.
MATTHEW: It was terrific to get over the line this season, and what do you think was the key factor that helped Ballinascarthy win the county title?
ANNIE: We had such a drive in us to win it this year, I don’t know what it was. We actually believed we could do it. I do think our whole team got on so well together this year on and off the pitch, and I think it helped to drive it on for one another.
MATTHEW: Was there any particular moment or game where you saw something that gave you the belief that Bal would win the championship?
ANNIE: Our last championship match in the group stages against Aghada was the point I started thinking we could actually do it. We hadn’t been playing great up until then and it was such a tough game, we just about won it by a point. I think if we had lost we were knocked out, so it also gave us a huge confidence boost.
MATTHEW: What were the celebrations like after Ballinascarthy beat Milford (0-9 to 0-5) in the final? And how important is it to celebrate successes like this?
ANNIE: The celebrations were brilliant! We had a bit of a homecoming in the hall in Bal and people came down to congratulate us. It was very nice to see all of the younger children all kitted out in their Ballinascarthy gear.
After that we headed over to the Henry Ford for the rest of the night, and the celebrations then carried on for another three days! I think it’s so important to celebrate these wins; we train from January onwards in rain, hail or snow, with the aim of winning a county, and they certainly don’t come around every year. So, it is well worth it when we finally get there!
MATTHEW: Looking ahead to 2025, can Ballinascarthy use the momentum from this year to kick on again next season?
ANNIE: I’m hoping we can have a good run at it, but I think we all know it will be a huge step up and there will be very tough games. It is our first year ever playing intermediate camogie, so we will have to wait and see how we get on!
The Ballinascarthy team crowned 2024 Cork premier junior A champions. Back from left, Kate O'Donovan, Megan Ryan, Michelle O'Driscoll, Kaela O'Driscoll, Karen Lucey, Mischa May Pattwell, Michelle Dullea, Sinéad McCarthy, Sarah Cahalane, Grace Flynn, Martina O'Brien, Ella Cahalane, Moira Barrett and Aoife Kingston. Front from left, Nicole Prochniak, Muireann Fadian, Síofra Pattwell, Aoibhín Ryan, Maeve Kingston, Annie Condon (c), Millie Condon, Orlaith Dee, Rachel Cahalane, Clara Crowley, Jane Twomey and Ciara Hayes.
MATTHEW: Fill us in on your Ballinascathy career, and what playing for Bal means to you?
ANNIE: I started playing when I was six years old. Myself and Sinead Mac started together on the same day all togged out, and I have loved playing it ever since. Apart from winning the county this year, there have been a lot of other highlights. We won the junior B county final in 2018, I think I was only 15 at the time but it felt great getting to play with all of the older girls and get a win, as we don’t get them too often! Another highlight has definitely been our breakfast club. During the summer we used to have training at 8.30am on a Saturday morning, so we organised a breakfast club where we would all bring some food or drinks to have after training together, and sometimes we would head for a swim afterwards if the weather was nice! I think it was nearly the only reason I made those early trainings some weeks!
MATTHEW: Who is the camogie player who inspires you the most?
ANNIE: Jennifer O’Leary. She was doing very well playing for Cork when I was younger, and I couldn’t believe she was so local to me!
MATTHEW:We know your sister Millie is a Cork senior camogie player, so do things get competitive between the two of you?!
ANNIE: Oh absolutely! we have always been that way, nothing has changed. When I was playing camogie with the college in first and second year we used to play against the Cork minor trials, which Millie was playing at.
We would both end up marking each other at the beginning, but it didn’t last long. We ended up having to change markers, as we were tearing into one another!
MATTHEW: What will you miss most about 2024?
ANNIE: Just playing with this team. Between going on J1s, holidays and people moving away, I’m not sure when we are all going to be playing together again.
