Echo Women in Sport award: Laura Treacy's leadership and consistency to the fore

When you’re in the last few minutes of a close game and you look around and you need players to stand up and be counted, they don’t come much better than Laura Treacy.

When Galway were pushing the Cork camogie senior team hard late on as they bid to get level the Killeagh star cleared ball after ball to ensure the Rebels retained their All-Ireland championship title by 1-16 to 0-16. For this and other displays across the season, Laura was the winner of The Echo Women in Sport award for August.

Now considered one of the senior players her ability to read the game from centre-back has become a critical part of Cork’s success in the last number of years.

But at the start of this season, it didn’t look too good for Laura as she was out with a hamstring injury. Slowly but surely, she started her comeback and once the championship started there was no stopping her.

Reflecting on the All-Ireland final: "I suppose two in a row, it's never easy to do and it takes a really good team to do that. And I think we proved to ourselves that we are a really good team.

“Galway were outstanding on the day and they threw everything at us and we had to turn around and react to that. It was a super performance and one that I'll be smiling back on for some time.

“It's great to come out on top of a tight game like that. A lot of people have asked me how this year felt compared to last year. They were two completely different feelings. Last year we hadn't won an All-Ireland in something like five years and I suppose that is a long time for Cork.

TRANSITION

“There was a big transition going on, I suppose through that time, players coming through. Young players like Aoife Healy and Laura Hayes, who have all become senior players now.

Getting over the line last year against Waterford was just the biggest sigh of relief. 

"I think we had been chasing that for a long, long time, so it was more relief last year when that final whistle went. Even though we were up by so much, you know, it had been so long since we won it was a really special feeling.

“Then when you look back on this year, I suppose like everybody's chasing you. So it's a completely different approach. We completely focused on ourselves and I know it’s like a really cliche thing to say, but we did.

“They were going to be analysing us and trying to stop us, so we had to make targets for ourselves, and we were probably trying to better ourselves all the time.

“So this time we were kind of like it's a reward for us, instead of us chasing something for so many years. So it was a really special feeling for both years. But two completely different feelings at full-time, but really special ones.”

Even now Laura can still recall when she started with the senior side a few years ago at this stage.

“Paudie Murray had me in, when I think back, 16 turning 17 that year. I had two more years at minor so I was playing minor that year and had another year to play minor again. It seems like an absolute lifetime ago.

“There was a slight change Matthew Twomey went to manager but It felt like a bit of continuity but at the same time a bit of freshness as well.

“Then Ger (Manley) took over this year and again he was involved for the last few years so we knew what he was like. He brought his own ideas and freshen things up and drove us on to retain the All-Ireland title.”

Laura is now 29 and at this stage there is little she hasn’t seen as Cork star, suffering loss as well as the joy of defeat in big games over the years.

“I do feel I have a lot of experience at this point, especially seeing the younger ones coming in, the likes of Méabh Murphy and Orlaith Cahalane, and others over the last year or two. I remember when I was that age coming into it. That’s many moons ago at this point.

It’s completely different. My first All-Ireland was in 2014, I was 18 turning 19 and I was a bábóg. 

"I was so small, light in stature, but I was given a job. I remember, Matthew Twomey was involved that year and for the semi-final and final, I remember Matthew and Paudie speaking to me.

“I particularly remember marking Ursula Jacob in the semi-final in Thurles. They told me, ‘Ursula Jacob usually gets on X amount of possessions a game,’ – I think it was seven or eight – ‘but she tends to score from them. If you can count it down from seven or eight; you’ve turned her over once, you’ve only seven more. You turned her over again, then you’ve blocked her, now there’s only five more.’

LEADER

“Now, I’m looking after myself and I’m focusing on that a lot leading up to the big games, but also making sure the girls around me are okay. Because, Gemma O’Connor, Aoife Murray, Orla Cotter, the likes of those girls always looked after me when I was that age. 

Checking in on me, always being there on the pitch as an option for me if I was on the ball. So I’m trying to do that too for the younger girls.”

And come the start of the inter-county season next year Laura will be eager to go and give it her all to make it three in a row for Cork.