Millie Condon on Cork getting their first league win and learning from Ashling Thompson

Cork got their first win of the Centra Camogie League with their win over Kilkenny on Saturday.

The Rebels travelled to take on the Cats on the back of losses to Waterford and Antrim and knew that a win was vital to get off the mark.

The Rebels had several players back from injury and still have more to come, with Clodagh Finn, Amy O’Connor and Saoirse McCarthy yet to make an appearance this season.

The returning Meabh Cahalane, Laura Treacy and Sorcha McCartan all made a difference, as did goalscorer Orlaith Cahalane in her first start of the season.

Orlaith did come on as a sub in the first two games but this was her first start.

In the end, they ran out comfortable winners by 1-15 to 0-9 to inflict Kilkenny’s first defeat of the season and start their own climb up the table.

Unfortunately for Cork the win came at a cost with the serious injury picked up by star player Ashling Thompson. With just two minutes left in the game, she dislocated her elbow and will now be out for some time, but for how long is still unknown at this point.

When she will be back is not known at this stage but all Cork camogie supporters wish her the best for a speedy recovery.

Alongside her in midfield against the Cats was Millie Condon.

The Ballinascarthy player is fast becoming a mainstay of the side and put in another top-class showing last Saturday.

Afterwards she was delighted to get the win but was also hoping that Ashling wouldn’t be out for too long.

On the game, Millie said: "It’s nice to get some points on the board, we did have a slow enough start to the year, but we were trusting in the process anyway, and it was good to get the win.

“You never get it easy against Kilkenny, it's always going to be a dogfight. You must do the basics right, and when you do them right, then you hope everything will click.

“It was good to get the goal, we have been trying to get a few but they haven’t been coming and it made a big difference to make sure we won.

“But we still have a lot of work to do ahead of our next game against Tipperary next weekend. We know that we will have to up our performance again the next day and keep on working hard in training and try to improve on what we do in games every time we play.” 

LEARNING CURVE

Speaking about her midfield, she Millie added: “Obviously you never want to see any player get injured and we all hope that she will be back playing as soon as possible.

“I have been learning an awful lot playing alongside her and she is a huge player for us. So it’s a blow that it looks like she is going to be out for some time, but right now we don’t know really what is going to happen.

“We just hope that Ashling will be ok and back doing what she loves doing fast.”