‘We shed blood and tears’: Ashling Thompson says Cork moved mountains to reach the pinnacle

Ashling Thompson reckons it might be a couple of years before her right arm will feel normal again, but that didn’t stop the Cork player from raising the O’Duffy Cup high over her head following an extraordinary seventh triumph.Coupled with her three club successes with Milford, Thompson has now won 10 All-Ireland senior medals.“It’s unreal,” she says. “I won my first All-Ireland with Milford back in the 2012-13 campaign. That was the first thing that kind of popped into my head as I was just sitting on the pitch after the game, seven with Cork and three with my club, so a perfect 10.”READ MORESunday’s victory over Galway provided the 36-year-old with a remarkable ending to what had been a difficult season during which she suffered a serious elbow injury in March and then a hamstring tear ahead of Cork’s All-Ireland semi-final against Tipperary.“You’d always have your pre-match nerves going in and I suppose from an individual standpoint, it was a lot different for me this year,” says the five-time All Star.“I’ve never had a year where I’ve spent the majority of it out injured. So you’d obviously question yourself on match fitness and all that kind of stuff but I knew when the management gave me my spot, they must have believed in me.Cork's Ashling Thompson celebrates with the O'Duffy Cup after Sunday's All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship final against Galway at Croke Park. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho “I really wanted to be here on All-Ireland final day and I’m just so grateful to the management that they gave me that chance and that I was there at the final whistle as well. It meant everything.”As for the elbow – a full dislocation during which her forearm separated from her upper arm, damaged ligaments and a broken bone – it might be some time before she has a full range of movement in her right arm.“I still get pain,” she adds. “I’d say it’ll be probably a couple of years before it’ll ever feel normal again, but I have enough range anyway to be able to make a tackle or strike the ball.”The latest episode of the Cork-Galway rivalry provided yet another all-action engrossing affair between the two best teams in camogie right now. And while Thompson had physical injury issues to be mindful of, she says there were even bigger hurdles to overcome. “In Croke Park, I always relate it to going into a UFC ring, like there is no way out and it’s completely mental, the physical kind of looks after itself. “But psychologically you need to stay clued in because you see where we had a six-point lead and the game came down to the wire again, one point.“We always say that in our camp there’s nothing less than 120 per cent expected on the training field.Cork manager Ger Manley celebrates at the end of Sunday's All-Ireland senior camogie final at Croke Park. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho “We regrouped [after losing in Munster], we went back for seven weeks and we absolutely hit the ground running. We hit each other harder than we hit Galway [on Sunday]. We shed blood and we shed tears, but it worked out and it paid off.”Thompson says former Cork senior hurling manager, Donal O’Grady, made a massive difference to the group as part of Ger Manley’s backroom team.“Absolutely, what a cool man, just cool as a cucumber, cool as a breeze,” says Thompson. “He’s brilliant with the one-liners, even when things seem like it’s panic, it’s always just the smallest, simplest piece of information that Donal will give you and it makes you feel nice and calm.“He had a thing [on Sunday] actually before the match where we all had to take a pledge that we were all going to be northsiders for the day.”One of the game-changing tactical switches on Sunday was Cork’s half-time decision to push Thompson forward to nullify the impact of Galway sweeper Ciara Hickey.“Ciara was getting on oceans of ball as the plus-one, and she was doing the same the last day against Kilkenny in the semi-final. She was making it quite difficult for our inside forward line to get that delivery in. Cork's Ashling Thompson celebrates with her family on the Croke Park surface after Sunday's All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship final victory against Galway. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho “I was just going to stick with her and force her up the field to mark me basically, and that forced them to kind of sit somebody else back who I knew wasn’t so comfortable. That completely opened our forward line, which was perfect.”As for 2027, Thompson is not ruling out another season in the blood and bandages.“I’ll have a good think over the winter. It’s hard to decide, it’s hard to know where I’m at when you’ve spent an entire season injured. If you asked me now when I was this tired I’d probably say no. “But I know that injury has dictated a lot of my season this year and probably is the reason that I feel so worn out and burnt out at times. But I’ll have a think over the winter. “A fella said it to me the other day, if you think about it that means you still want it. But whereas if it’s a straight up no, that’s when you know it’s over. So, look, I’ll see. If I’m hungry for it again in the winter, it’ll be back on.”