'We would play an All-Ireland Final anywhere'

Every GAA player dreams of playing in Páirc an Chrócaigh on All-Ireland Final Day. Boys and girls. Men and women. And the dream can very much become a reality. Not if you’re a junior ladies club player. This dream has not become a reality. Yet. Laura Carroll, 2022 All-Ireland Club Final winner with Salthill Knocknacarra, takes us through the bizarre twists and turns of her teams’ journey to an All-Ireland Final.

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The 2021 GAA season saw the camogie club finals hosted in Croke Park for the first time, for just the senior and intermediate teams though. The 2022 season saw the ladies football club finals hosted in Croke Park for the first time, again for just the senior and intermediate teams though. 

The men’s football and hurling club finals have been hosted in Croke Park for many years; senior, intermediate, and junior. Why is it perceived that the junior ladies’ finalists don’t deserve their day out in Croke Park too? We put in just as much effort and commitment as the other finalists. What’s the difference between the junior men and women? Beats me.

In a previous edition of An Phoblacht, I wrote about my Gaelic football team, Salthill Knocknacarra, winning the county final and reaching the Connacht Final and still being in the shadows of our male counterparts who competed in the county senior football final. Lo and behold, we prevailed from that Connacht final and kept winning. All the way to the All-Ireland Final. And then the inequalities between the men and women were amplified.

As alluded to above, this year was the first time ever that the ladies’ football club finals would be played at GAA HQ. Media launches were held in Croke Park where each of the six captains from the senior, intermediate, and junior finalists were brought up to promote the finals. 

• Dressing room facilities for the All-Ireland finalists in Fethard

It was a great occasion to get to Croke Park, but a slap in the face for the junior captains who enjoyed the day but would not be gracing the field there for the final. Instead, the junior finalists of Salthill Knocknacarra, Galway and Cork’s Naomh Abán were scheduled to play their final in Kilmallock, Limerick. Stuff of dreams, right?

The senior and intermediate finals were played in Croke Park on Saturday 10 December, at 3pm and 5pm (under lights). You might ask why the junior final couldn’t have been played the same day and location at 1pm? Put it on at any time, even 9am, you can guarantee we’d have been delighted to just get the opportunity to grace the Croke Park pitches. But no, they scheduled our game for the following day, on a random pitch in County Limerick. Not even the Limerick Gaelic Grounds.

We got on with it. We’ll play an All-Ireland Final anywhere, we thought. It was great to watch the senior and intermediate teams showcase their skills, live on TG4 and with lots of media coverage. 

The ladies’ game is progressing at least. But as the day went on, the weather was getting colder. We were set to play in Kilmallock the next day, with a 1pm throw in. We had a team meeting on Saturday and it was half-mentioned that our game could move to the University of Limerick – a 4G all-weather pitch. The pitch inspection in Kilmallock was due to take place Sunday morning at 11.30am. With us scheduled to arrive to the pitch at the same time, we pushed for a decision to be made the night before to save us travelling past UL to have to come right back up the N20. Especially if the weather was as bad as it was threatening. We were planning how many layers we would be wearing, and to bring both studs and mouldies (boots more suited to all-weather pitches) just in case of a last-minute change.

That evening, bags were packed, food was prepared, and everyone’s head set on the next day. We were pumped after some motivating speeches from our management team and captains earlier that day. We were due to get on the road at 9am the next morning. We were expecting a text from our manager about location so when his name popped up on my phone at 9.30pm, I barely glanced (I was powering through trying to finish an assignment before the big final day!) Next thing, loads of messages are popping up. Loads of “WTF”s and “Is this true?” messages coming through. Gosh I better read our manager’s messages - are we going to Croke Park or something!?

• We walked 10 minutes up the road with all of the heavy gear. We walked through dirt and mud

No. “It’s just been confirmed that tomorrow’s match is OFF”. Less than 12 hours before we were supposed to get on the road. What a farce. It was a yellow weather warning in the west of the country. But interestingly, there was now an orange weather warning in Dublin – where the LGFA would be travelling from after the other finals. Granted, the roads were bad Sunday morning. We would have had the motorway all the way to UL, but Naomh Abán coming from West Cork, would have had treacherous roads – it was the right decision in hindsight. 

But if they had just played us in Croke Park that Saturday, it would have gone ahead. Moreover, the men’s Munster junior and intermediate football finals went ahead in Mallow, a mere 30-minute drive from Kilmallock, on the same day and at the same throw in time as us.

We held a team meeting Sunday morning. What days suit people for a rescheduling? What days don’t? Are people going on holidays? Hopefully nobody gets injured in the meantime. Hopefully the match even goes ahead at some stage or another. Yes, here we were wondering if our All-Ireland Final would get permanently cancelled. There was only one weekend before Christmas, then the next two weeks are Christmas and New Years, and you could rule out the next weekend or two in January to give both teams some time to train after Christmas.

We waited and waited for an announcement from the LGFA of a location and date. The date came first – Saturday 17 December. Okay, this is manageable. Two of us heading on long-haul trips on the following Monday, another girl going to London on the Wednesday before, but she cancelled this trip. Another girl had a family wedding on Sunday. Another girl not going to a swimming gala anymore. 

Many Christmas parties, weddings, and end of exam celebrations not attended or attended soberly. Even an all-expenses-paid-for holiday abandoned without a second thought. All of these sacrifices, and more, made without a flinch. The weather though, it wasn’t improving through the week. What we did know for certain again was that it wouldn’t be played in Croke Park with the camogie finals (senior and intermediate only) set for that day and the Men’s club senior hurling semi-final (!!) scheduled for the Sunday.

While the country gave out about the GAA scheduling the All-Ireland hurling semi-final on the same day as the FIFA World Cup final, we were just hoping that our final wouldn’t get postponed again.

Cahir was the decided location. 2hr 10min journey for us. 1hr 30min journey for Naomh Abán. Similar to Kilmallock’s pitch, Cahir wasn’t Tipperary’s main GAA pitch. Not exactly a curtain-raiser location. 

• The last steps to an All-Ireland FinalAnyway, we’ll play an All-Ireland Final anywhere. Great that we have a date. Great that we have a location. Our training sessions were set, and it was time to focus on our goal again. Let’s hope the weather improves. The weather was forecasted for a balmy six degrees though on Saturday, a scorcher! So, we were hopeful of a thawed out pitch by the 1pm throw in.

Friday evening, I was half expecting a message saying the game was cancelled. Thankfully, nothing came, so the bags were packed again, food prepped, and focus-mode turned on once again on Friday evening in anticipation of our 8am departure.

On the road we went on Saturday, stopping 30 minutes outside of Cahir in a Limerick hotel to get some breakfast and have a stretch. Timed to perfection. Our management team wanted to keep us in this warm hotel for as long as possible so as not to be in a cold Cahir dressing room for too long before the match. We arrived in Cahir around 12pm as planned. Now the fun starts. There was nowhere for our bus to park. So, he pulls in at the entrance to the pitch and we all get out of the bus on the main road and grabbed our bags from the luggage department, also facing the main road. 

We walk in and the grass is looking long. There won’t be any bouncing of the ball on that pitch, that’s for sure. I have a quick scan of the pitch – no dugouts for our substitutes. I look in the distance at the supporters’ stand – well it’s a hill of dirt with a roof over it, not a seat to be seen. Anyway, we’ll play an All-Ireland Final anywhere.

We get into the dressing room – it’s one of those classic country club dressing rooms – old, cold, and a single toilet that has seen better days. We’re getting into the zone, getting our boots on, reading the match programmes. There’s some whispering amongst the two captains, I take no heed of this. Next thing, in comes our managers. “The pitch is frozen girls, it’s unplayable and unsafe”. Here we go again. Pitch inspection at 12.20pm, throw in at 1pm. After us travelling hours and supporters still on their way.

There is an all-weather pitch 30 minutes out the road in Fethard, and they are checking if this is available. Naomh Abán have agreed to play it here, it’s up to us now. Well, we sure as hell weren’t going home to Galway without having played the final still. As per the above, if it didn’t happen today, when would it happen and who would we be missing? 

We agreed to it. Right, boots off, back on the bus, call our parents, siblings, friends to warn them of the change of venue and change of throw in to 2pm. Or is it 2.30pm according to social media? Or is it 2.15pm according to a social media edited post? Who knows, we’ll just get to Fethard.

On departing Cahir, we were told that apparently Fethard’s changing rooms were even worse. Surely not?

Well by jeepers they were right. We were handed a brand-new set of jerseys specially commissioned by the LGFA for the final, in a construction container. We couldn’t even all fit into the container. The walk to it was even worse. The bus couldn’t drive the whole way to the pitch due to a low-lying bridge, so we walked 10 minutes up the road with all of the heavy gear. We walked through dirt and mud and ended up on a construction site with a glorious 4G pitch in the middle. All players, management, spectators and officials shared 4 portaloos (3 female, 1 male). Some players even reverted to urinating in the field behind the containers as the players didn’t exactly have time to queue up and wait.

Onto the pitch we went for our warm-ups, not as a team but one-by-one as we individually exited the portaloos. We were still unsure of the throw in time. It was supposed to be a whole occasion, with the players due to parade around the whole pitch behind a brass band and the National Anthem sung proudly to the tricolour. Of all of this, we only got the singer. She had to sing without a microphone and having watched back our match a few weeks later, it became apparent that the audience watching online could not even hear this.

Anyways, the teams lined out on the pitch and down to the goals I went. After the organisational issues of the past seven days, we finally had an opportunity to compete on the playing field. Honestly, it wasn’t until that ball was thrown in did I believe we’d have played the match. 

We score the first point and that’s when I notice there’s no scoreboard, despite me seeing a van driving through the construction site marked ‘scoreboard’ earlier. There must not have been a place to set it up. 

Throughout the match, both sets of players would revert to asking the referee and umpires the score. Other than this, the match played out well. Fair refereeing decisions, good quality pitch, and the daylight lasted. And thankfully, we got the win. All-Ireland Champions, the week before Christmas, in Fethard Co. Tipperary – the stuff of dreams, right?

Homecoming to Salthill Knocknacarra, I couldn’t help but imagine how the two communities would have shown up were we the men’s team after winning an All-Ireland title. We were grateful of the 100-200 people that showed up to our clubhouse on our arrival back home and our hotel sponsors that provided us with a three-course meal. Celebrations continued into the next few days and the odd person would question what we were celebrating – “County champs or something is it?”. “No, we won the All-Ireland yesterday, did you know?” – “No, not at all”. In our local pubs, these were the conversations that went on. Disappointing, but not surprising.

At the end of the day, we said we’d be happy with a win anywhere, and winning an All-Ireland alongside girls you’ve grown up with, girls you’ve lost several finals with over the last number of years, and girls who have made massive sacrifices to get to this point made it all worthwhile. 

We’ll play an All-Ireland Final anywhere, but would a men’s team have the same mentality? They don’t know any different, do they? Would a men’s team have put up with this treatment? We pay the same membership fees, make the same sacrifices, give the same commitment as the men. And we are still fighting for equality. The GAA are calling for the LGFA and Camogie Association to be under one umbrella so why are they being so stubborn? Why are they slowing down the fight for gender equality? The sooner the LGFA is under the GAA umbrella, the better. ν

• Laura Carroll is a Dublin based tax advisor currently playing soccer for St Patrick’s CYFC in the EWFL, and Gaelic football for Salthill Knocknacarra.