Rebel Óg awards: Cork camogie U16s and minor ladies footballers honoured

THE Cork ladies minor footballers and Cork U16 camogie team are the joint winners of the July Rebel Óg award.

They are both being honoured for their recent All-Ireland wins, as well as their Munster championship success.

The camogie side have kept Cork’s recent run at this age level going as they made it three title wins, both All-Ireland and Munster, in the last four years. They won in 2019, 2021, and again this year and only for the fact there was no competition in 2020 they could have been looking at four in a row.

Remarkable success by the young camogie stars who have to go back to 2003 for their previous success at this level before 2019.

In the Munster championship, they started with a win over Waterford, before beating Limerick in the semi-final and in the final got the better of Tipperary.

In the All-Ireland series, which is a separate competition, they lost their first game to Galway. This meant that, going into their second game against Kilkenny, they had to win by 12 points to ensure they stayed involved in the championship. To the credit of the players, they did that, giving them a huge confidence boost.

They followed that up with wins over Limerick and Wexford to reach the All-Ireland decider. It was no great surprise to see them face a quality Tipp side in this final as well and once again the Rebel side came out on top to complete the double for the third time in four years.

The minor footballers' Munster campaign saw them also face Tipperary in the final, a game they knew was going to be far from easy.

But in the end, Cork ran out comfortable winners in the end by 3-11 to 2-5. After a very tight first half Cork led at half-time led by 1-6 to 1-2, the goal coming from Rachel Leahy. Second-half goals from Abigail Ring and Leahy saw Cork run out deserving winners in the end.

On then to the All-Ireland series and like the U16 camogie side this was a title the Rebels were also defending. They have enjoyed great success at All-Ireland level since 2015 and were looking for their fifth title since then, losing only once in that time to Galway in 2018. This competition was not played for in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

The Rebels faced Cavan in the semi-final, a game that was never going to be easy, but three first-half goals put them on their way to victory and on to the final where they faced Galway.

This would be the third time since 2017 that these two counties were in the final and the Rebels were aiming for a bit of revenge for their loss in 2018 to Galway.

This was always going to be a close contest and with 10 minutes to go there was only a point in it. But Cork finished the game strongly, with a goal from Ring helped them to a comfortable 1-16 to 1-8 win in the end.