Echo Women in Sport award: Aoife O'Neill went from hating camogie to loving it in a month!

Two senior All-Ireland medals, a minor one and a senior club championship medal with St Finbarr’s are just some of the accolades that Aoife O’Neill has won over the years.

Not a bad haul for someone who freely admits she hated camogie when she first started playing

“I was seven when I started and I really didn't want to play at all,” said Aoife, “I hated it but my mum made me come out because my granddad wanted me to play so bad.

“He was like no you have to get her out, so I went out on a Saturday morning and I knew everyone between family playing and school.

But I hated it, absolutely hated it starting out and pretended to be sick so I wouldn’t have to go training. 

My mum was 'no, keep at it, and if you do for a month you’ll be grand'.

“So I said ok and after the month I was kind of enjoying it with the girls and sheer all my friend were playing so I at it and was happy out after that.

“I felt they were all screaming at me and I didn't know what they were saying. Things like pull on the ball and whatever and I just didn't take to it at the start.

“Then all of a sudden I just loved it, it was more like my friends were all doing it and they were training after school. And I was like, oh, I want to go train after school. So then it clicked and I loved it.

I starting playing with Togher Primary School and we were always in the Sciath na Scol finals and won a good few. We had the Lough leagues and stuff like that as well.

“We were winning them every year like so I was lucky enough to captain the Barrs in the Lough leagues in sixth class as well, so that was great.

“We had a good team with the Barrs coming up along through the age grades as well, A load of girls my age kind of like stuck at it when normally come minor, you can lose a load.

“But a load of like my age group really stuck at it and lots of them are still playing on various teams with the club.

“We won the Minor B in 2018-2019 and that was a big thing for us at the time, to win a county title at that level.

“We used to win the Seandun U13 and U15 nearly every year and we used to love that, but we got out into county then and you'd be playing bigger, stronger country girls and we were be kind of put back in our box by them.

“But minor then was a different story and it was like the first real big thing that we won. That win gave us a huge boost of confidence and it drives you and then to say this is class you want to be winning more.”

But not too much success came at club level for Aoife until this year. It was a long time, 2006, since the Barrs won the senior county camogie title.

That was until this year when they beat the defending champions, Sarsfields, in the final and afterwards Aoife was named Player of the Game. For that Aoife is the October winner of The Echo Women in Sport award.

MOTIVATION

That win was built on a loss to Cloughduv in the quarter-final last year, one that hurt the Barrs and was a major driving force for them this season.

“I think I've watched that match like a million times over. I do think it was the first 10 minutes that caught us. We never took off after that, it was nearly point for point, which it shouldn't have been.

“But look fair play to Cloughduv they put everything into that match, they put heart and soul and died fir each other on the pitch that day.

We didn't give as much as we could have, so I think that was a massive driving factor coming in this year.

“I just knew if we got past the semi-final we would win. At the start of the year we met and set out our goals and obviously the big one is the championship.

“I think everyone was bang on the same page, so focused on what we wanted to achieve. It was straight from the start and I think this year as a club group we were the closest we have ever been.

“You can have all the talent in the world but if you have no chemistry as a group you are not going to win.

“This year everyone was so willing to work for each other, we just bonded and it showed in the final what it meant to every single person when we won it.

“When we faced Cloughduv in the semi this year we were just determined that it wasn’t going to happen again and they weren’t going to beat us.

“Thanks be to God we got over the line against them and once we did I just knew we would win the final. I don’t know why but I just knew it.

CLASS

“Sars are a class team and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy but coming in at half-time in the final we were saying we hadn’t played well. We said we needed to up it now as we were playing against the wind and Molly Lynch has the best puck in Ireland so we knew the danger of that.

“So we knew the ball was going to be landing down on top of us and if I went up for a ball and missed it then I had confidence in the players around me that they would pick it up. Everybody just upped their game and when Orlaith Cahalane got the goal it was a huge score.

When the final whistle went I just cried, you would have in your head what you would do, but I just cried. 

"My whole family is Barss and I knew just how much it would mean to them as it did to all the players and management.

“It was genuinely the best feeling ever and hopefully one we will get to experience again very soon."