'The girls need to get that respect, and I think they are' - McGrath

It was a week that saw the aftermath of their county final win over Maynooth elevated to national headlines and back on the pitch, the Naas camogie team showed exactly why are do deserving of respect with a determined display.

Bodies were battered and bruised and pushed almost to the brink of breaking point and the team’s manager Damian McGrath was in awe of the effort that had been put in through two separate extra time and periods and then the mental fortitude to hold their never in a 45s shoot-out.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life and I don’t how the girls made it through that, both sides. The effort they gave to play 90 minutes and then go into a 45s shootout…it’s great to come out on the winning side of but I think there has to be a better way to finish these games but look, we’re happy to live for another day. We’ll take a lot of learnings out of today for sure and we’ll restart from tomorrow morning and go again,” said McGrath.

Respect had been the words on the lips of many throughout the week and McGrath emphasised again how important it is for male and females in the GAA to be operating on a level playing field.

“The girls' sport needs to get the respect it deserves. You look at the effort they put in there today, the training they do is no different to the training that our senior footballers, senior hurlers, senior ladies do in the club in Naas. Both codes get treated the exact same, access to facilities, access to S&C, nutrition etc. Every club is doing their best. I think there’s spotlight incidents that happen that don’t help the situation. 

"The girls need to get that respect, and I think they are. You see the quality of camogie that is being played now throughout the various competitions and the respect that are getting from within their clubs and from within their counties is driving that on,” said McGrath.

The game itself against Knockananna was just as difficult and McGrath thought that it would be. They contained a number of players who won a Leinster Senior Football semi-final for Tinahely 24 hours later and they had also won a national camogie title last year.

“We knew it was going to be really tough and difficult game today. They won the All-Ireland last year at junior level and they have progressed again into the Intermediate and have been competitive there. We took nothing for granted coming and it showed there that you have you have to be on your game to get through,” he said.

That effort wasn’t without it’s cost, however. Both Róise Hennessy and Allie McGrath had to be replaced after picking up injuries and they will be in a race to be fit for the weekend’s Leinster semi-final away to Laois side Camross.

“We’ve two bad injuries there by the looks of it so we hope they can recover. I’m not too sure how bad or severe they are yet but we’ll see how they are and then we’ll regroup. We have a panel there so if have to we’ll go deep into that and use it but we’ll know more early in the week as to how they are,” McGrath.