– ©INPHO/Tommy Dickson
Scariff/Ogonnelloe want to go where no Clare team has gone so far this year and that’s to become All-Ireland champions.
Standing in their way is Johnstownbridge of Kildare. Aisling Corbett captains the East Clare amalgamation and leading her side into battle in the All-Ireland Junior Club Camogie Final is an honour. “It’s the biggest sporting achievement of my life to date, I’m really looking forward to it and I’m honoured to be representing such a great group of girls at this level”.
It’s been a long road for Scariff/Ogonnelloe having commenced training on January 10th, since then they have been training at least two evenings a week where a big attendance has stood to the panel of players.
Twenty five year old Aisling will line out in goals for her team and says there is always an extra eye on her because of her position but she’s happy to stick with her methods regardless of the attention.
“There’s always pressure on a goalie, you’re the last line of defence and you can’t afford to drop a ball or anything it actually looks stupid whereas if it happens out the field you kind of have to let it go but the goalie has to get it right. Sometimes you’d hesitate ‘will I catch it won’t I’ but you just have to make your mind up and go for it and hope for the best and most of the time it works out for me”.
In their semi-final, they had it all too easy with a thirty five point win, needless to say Corbett wasn’t too busy over the hour which didn’t bother her in the slightest. She’s hoping for more of the same even though she’s fully aware the chances of that happening are fairly slim.
“The last day I hadn’t much to do and a couple of matches this year I’ve had fairly quite days but I like the quite days, I’ve a great full-back line and they’re really reliable girls they listen to what I say and it’s really important to have girls that will listen to each other and the calls. The next day will be a lot more challenging, we know the team we’re going to be up against is going to be four steps up from the team we played the last day and more even. We’re going to give it our best shot and hopefully have another quite day they’re my favourite days”.
All over Scariff and Ogonnelloe this week camogie is the talk of the land, come Sunday conversations revolving around the match will be of no interest to Aisling instead she’ll stick to her usual routine and possibly head to the church before making tracks for O’Connor Park in Birr.
“I’m not going to change anything or make any drastic changes, I’m going to get up early like I always do on matchday, going to eat fairly clean well I’ll be eating clean all week, get up early have a good breakfast, listen to a bit of music, go to mass maybe that’s it really go off to the match and to be honest I don’t like talking about the match before it, in the car we just talk about anything but the match because that’s what makes me nervous I think the rest of the girls are the same there’s no one that really likes going on about it too much and then we’ll just get there and do the business please God”.