No dual Cork players in camogie and ladies football for 2026

A ball hasn’t been kicked or a sliothar hit but it’s all change for the Cork ladies footballers and camogie sides.

For the first time in more than 15 years there will be no dual stars involved with the Cork senior sides this year. For the last few seasons, the numbers had been reducing, with only three in 2025.

Aoife Healy, Hannah Looney and Libby Coppinger all played both codes last year, and also the season before.

But this season they won't be involved with the Cork senior football team, meaning that manager Joe Carroll will be missing three players who would have been starting in most games.

This is a major blow to them as they bid to retain their status in Division One of the Lidl National Football League, having been promoted back to the top-flight at the end of the 2025 campaign.

OZ-BOUND

In the cases of Healy and Looney both are heading to Australia to play Aussie Rules with Hawthorn and Fremantle, and will also be missing for the Cork senior camogie side in 2026. But Coppinger, like Meabh and Orlaith Cahalane in recent years, has opted to concentrate on camogie this season.

Coppinger is slightly unusual in that she tends to line out at full-back in camogie but plays in the forwards in football.

While she may never feature among the top football scorers any season, she is a handful for any defender and is often involved in setting up crucial scores for her side.

Her tacking ability and aggressive style of play has seen her recognised as a top footballer over her time with the Cork setup.

Since 2016, Coppinger has been involved with both senior sides and it will be a new experience for her not trying to balance both codes. To her credit, her dedication to both codes cannot be faulted and it was showed in its extreme two seasons ago.

In recent years camogie and ladies football games don’t tend to clash too often, but that year they did. The camogie side had a game in Cork and later that evening the footballers were in action in Galway.

After the camogie match Libby was straight into a car and up the road to Galway to come on at half-time and play her part for the footballers as well.

Speaking about her decision to concentrate on one code Libby said: “‘It was in the back of my mind a bit last year, and it got to the point where I had to decide – there was a lot of humming and hawing, and a lot of tears.

“I have always enjoyed playing both, and that love hasn’t changed. I love playing football, love the gang that’s involved, and I’ll miss so much of that.

“But the way the season plays out, there is no time for anything. Even in the season just gone I had a few niggly injuries, so preparing for games has become a lot harder with the season so much shorter.

“It’s great that there are more games than ever, but as a dual player it has become so much harder.” 

So after many years of discussions around dual stars and can it work it now looks like, at least for this season, that the days of the dual player at senior level are over.