Rabbitte: Kate Moran was our 16th player at the end
Athenry camogie manager Joe Rabbitte paid tribute to the late Kate Moran, saying she was the team's 16th player as they dug out a memorable victory over St Finbarr's in the All-Ireland club final replay.
The Galway champions, having come from six points down in the closing minutes to salvage a draw in the original final played before Christmas, pulled off another final quarter comeback in the Thurles replay, coming from four points down with less than 10 minutes remaining to win by two, claiming the club's second All-Ireland camogie title.
Rabbitte, a three-time All-Ireland winner with the Athenry hurlers and a two-time All-Star himself, has been in charge of the side for the past three years and his thoughts immediately turned to former player Kate Moran.
The 20-year old inter-camogie star died in April 2022 after she was injured in a senior league match against Ardrahan.
"We're delighted, but look at, I kind of feel somewhat guilty celebrating a game of camogie when we lost our beautiful Kate three years ago.
"I suppose for me personally, I put my last three years into Athenry camogie and at the back of my mind every time was Kate Moran," Rabbitte told RTÉ Sport after the game.
"We'll celebrate and we'll do everything, but we'll never forget her. She's the extra 16th player that we had there in the drawn game, six points down. And again today, four points down, we came back to win it by two."
The Athenry manager hailed his team's resolve in again digging out a match they looked like losing for large stretches. In the drawn final, they appeared dead and buried but rustled up 1-03 in the last five minutes to rescue a replay, led by their 44-year-old talisman, Therese Donohue (neé Maher), who last played for Galway in the 2013 All-Ireland final.
While the experienced heads were crucial, Rabbitte attributed much of the success to the influx of minor players. It was one of those teenagers, Clodagh Burke, who was critical in the closing stages, hitting 0-03 altogether, including the lead point in injury-time.
"We had a good minor team and we worked the minor team, myself and Patrick Linnane there this year. So we took over the minors and we won the minor in the county. There's six girls there that are minor that were playing for us today. Them six girls have really repaid their worth.
"And then the older ones, Jessie [Jessica Gill] and Therese (Donohue), absolutely fantastic and, you know, the girls all through the field.
"I knew that there was a kind of a good team in it, but if I want to be honest about it, did I think that we had a team who's good enough to win an All-Ireland this soon?
"Not really, but I suppose when we came and we played Dicksboro and I saw the way they dug deep there, I knew that those girls did not want to give up."
