Aoife Healy keen to help UCC end Ashbourne wait

Across the past two decades, UCC have been in nine Electric Ireland Ashbourne Cup finals – unfortunately, ultimate glory has remained elusive in that time.

Having retained their league title, the Skull and Crossbones are again among the favourites as they begin their inter-varsity championship campaign with a derby clash against MTU Cork today.

Two years ago, Cork dual star Aoife Healy was part of the UCC team that made the final, losing narrowly to TU Dublin after extra time. She would love to help the college end the long wait, though of course she knows that there are a few steps to be negotiated for that to materialise.

Coming in as league champions certainly gives Jerry Wallace’s side a boost, she feels.

“I don’t think UCC has won an Ashbourne since 2003,” Healy says.

“The league is not something to be thrown away, really. It’s a good learning curve for a team and for trying out new players and everything. It’s definitely a good one to win, coming into the Ashbourne.

“UCC are always there or thereabouts. We’ve been in a few finals where we’ve lost by really small margins – when I was in first year, we lost the Ashbourne final by a point in extra time.

“Those are the margins in the last few years for us, hopefully we’ll get across the line this year or next year.”

A camogie player with Aghada and a footballer with Cloyne, Healy also has O’Connor Cup commitments with UCC. Add in the county demands and her time is in big demand in the early part of the year.

“Definitely, this is the toughest time of the year,” she says, “January-March, when the college season is at its height and the inter-county pre-season and leagues are starting off.

“It’ll definitely be busy but I think we’re trying to organise it quite well this year, where we’re not over-loading anyone, and hopefully it’ll all work out.”

The theme of this year’s Ashbourne is ‘First-Class Rivals’, highlighting how players from different counties play together under the college banner. Healy, a third-year environmental science student, certainly finds the benefits in that.

“It’s great,” she says, “there’s such a wide variety of counties and players from different counties.

“You play against them and you wouldn’t want to be marking them because they’re so good, but you’re glad of them on your college team then.

“It definitely brings you on, I would definitely agree with that.”

Healy also has plenty of Cork colleagues for company in the red and black of UCC. Last year, retaining the All-Ireland title showed the maturity of the squad and she feels that dealing with such pressure will help to block out the noise around the possibility of the county winning three in a row for the first time since 1972.

“There’s extra pressure when you’ve won it before, so being able to win it for the second time in a row puts real confidence into the team, especially for this year,” she says.

“We know that we can win it after winning it the year before, so that kind of pressure shouldn’t really be affecting us.

“Last year, there was talk of two in a row and whether we could do it again but you can’t let that come to the forefront of your game. It’s something that you shouldn’t really be trying to focus on.

“This year, especially, we’re going to have to try to block that out and focus on ourselves and bettering ourselves again.”