Echo Women in Sport: Sarah  O'Brien fired UCC to overdue Ashbourne Cup success

The headlines said it all after the game as it read – O’Brien hits 2-2 as UCC dominate final.

That was the scenario for UCC camogie star Sarah O'Brien, as she scored 2-2 in the Ashbourne Cup final to see the trophy head to the college for the first time since 2003. They got the better of UCD at DCU Sportsgrounds in the decider as they atoned for last season's defeat to UL.

For her display in the final, Sarah was named the February winner of The Echo Women in Sport award, an accolade she well deserves.

It was probably written in the stars that she would one day be the Player of the Game in the Ashbourne Cup final, as the day UCC last won it in 2003 was the day she was born!

No doubt it was far from anyone’s thoughts back then that she would be the star player for the college some 23 years later, but it’s just one of those coincidences that make it a little bit extra special for the UCC and Limerick camogie star.

Like lots of players her camogie journey started when she was four or five hitting a ball round with her father.

Then when Sarah was around seven or so she joined the nearest camogie club, Templeglantine, where she is still playing to this day.

“I live in Abbeyfeale, but there's no camogie there, so I joined Templeglantine and I’m still playing there,” said Sarah. 

They were brilliant to be fair when I joined, and the likes of Olive Sheen and Liz Cahill would have put in a lot of work to develop the camogie community.

“We lost the intermediate final last year, having been promoted from junior in 2019, which is big for the club as there was a time where there was no adult team and girls went playing elsewhere.

THRIVING

“But they came back and we've been building ever since so it’s only stronger we're getting so it's a growing club.

“There's four of us now on the Limerick senior team so to have that from such a small village is a good sign and shows how good the coaching is there.

“Along with myself, Stephanie Woulfe and cousins Ciara and Noelle Curtin are all on the senior panel. Ciara and I are also on the U23 panel, so we have plenty of games.

“I'll take the games over training any day. So, I'm really enjoying the schedule now. It looks busy, but it's exciting.

Sarah studied Biological and Chemical Sciences at USS for four years and his now halfway through here Masters, at the end of which her time at UCC will come to an end.

“I finished my undergrad last year and then I started a Masters in September and that was in Industrial Pharmaceutical Sciences, Operations and Management, so a bit of a mouthful. I just had semester one in college before Christmas and January until August I'm on placement.”

During her time at UCC the Ashbourne Cup has meant a lot to Sarah and like others the dream finally came true to win the coveted title.

But she has suffered her fair share of heartbreak along the way in this championship, having lost at either semi-final or final stage for four years, before eventually winning this year.

“The idea of giving it one more go probably played a bit of a role in coming back for the Masters, but I'm really glad I did now.

“I think when I was in first year we lost the semi-final after extra time. In second year we lost the final also after extra time, and in third year we lost the semi-final and then in fourth year we lost the final.

Every year we use it to fuel us, but this year I suppose it fuelled us a bit more and we just got a bit lucky as well.

“My camogie and football club did well in the Limerick championships, so I was a bit late coming back for the league and we lost in the semi-final of that to Galway.

“But then once that finished it was full concentration on the Ashbourne Cup. We broke for Christmas, which is always a really hard one because you've four weeks off.

“They had given us about a two-week break and we were to come back to Cork the week before.

“But that was the week that everything froze and it was snowing, so all of that got cancelled. I think we just trained on the Sunday before our first game, which was against UCD on a Tuesday.

“I remember training on Sunday and it was like a gale force wind. We headed our separate ways and met up again then Tuesday night and that was the day then we had UCD at home.

“They were really up for it but we were up at half-time. However they ended up coming back and beating us and god it was one of those games where you're like that just slipped away.

“That loss meant we were facing a lot of harder games and I think it was kind of a bad day and it only really hit us afterwards that our path to try reach the final had changed completely.

“We ended up having to go to Waterford in our next game, because we thought we'd have UL and then suddenly we weren't actually playing UL at all. We ended up travelling down on a Friday night down to Waterford, and we played them again in some of the worst conditions ever.

“That meant the following week we had to go to Galway and play the same team that we had lost to in the league semi-final.

“We got to Galway anyway and we went into the dressing-room and the girls were thinking it wasn’t going to be played because of the weather and the state of the pitch.

We eventually then put on our gear, went out to warm up. I'd say we were probably 10 minutes in and the ref called the game off.

“They had to come to Cork then and we played them at the Mardyke. But that trip to Galway was a real bonding one and ahead of the refixture the dressing-room was electric, and I could see that all the girls were really up for this one. People had something to prove here.

“A week later we were in Limerick for the semi-final against UL. They were the huge favourites coming in as the holders and were going for three in a row.

“I think the first half we got off to a flying start and at half time we nearly were looking around being like, Jesus, we didn't think it was going to go this way.

“We settled ourselves again and said we needed to do the same again in the second half. It was a huge performance from absolutely everyone.

“I keep watching back that game, because it's a really sweet one, the last two years losing to UL was tough.”

But nothing was one yet and they had face UCD in the decider, the team that beat them the first day out.

“After the UL game there was a huge mental weight lifted, because there was a real thing about them that we couldn't just get over the last two years.”

DRIVEN

UCC were in control from the start and for neutrals it was obvious that there was only one team coming out on top.

“It didn’t feel like that for us, I remember at half-time, Meabh (Murphy) was next to me and I looked at her and I was like, I can’t sit still. I was that nervous that it could just fall apart.

“I was saying we cannot leave this slip out of our hands, and then we really got on top and we played with confidence that we kind of didn't have before. No one was overthinking anything, and it was really fun to play, like it was...god it was one of my most favourite matches I've ever played.”

At the final whistle Sarah said it was just elation as a weight was off their shoulders.

All the past finals and semi-finals go through your head and to be on the other side took me a while for it to settle in.

“Even going home on the bus and the next day I had to keep reminding myself we had won. It was one of the best feelings I've ever felt ever, it was brilliant.”