Camogs Lift and Shape to Strike
Talking Balls No Comments »
The goings on over the last year have made one particular coach ask not what he has done for his club but what his camogs have done for his blood pressure.
It all started one evening in a local bar. Our man had made the near fatal mistake of agreeing to coach the club camogie team for one night and one night only. The previous management setup had walked having had some success and succumbed to a better offer elsewhere. Less said the better.
Our coach’s one night in May was a pleasant enough experience but he soon discovered that coaching a bunch of girls aged 16-23 with one or two other ladies of advancing years was not the homely situation he thought it would be. Behind the matronly skirts of camogie there was an edge. A real edge. To the uninitiated camogie virgin coach this is a game played by unfit larger ladies that would be better sticking to the sofa and Sex in the City. Not so my friend discovered. Not so.
Our man entered a world that was deeply wondrous and strange but highly, highly enjoyable. After his one night love affair with the game he parked the subject and concentrated on the senior hurlers – a dedicated bunch that were determined to mark their passing with at least some achievement. But onwards to that night in the bar, the uncompromising camogie captain, centre back and a county star in her own right, as persuasive in her conversation as in her tackling marked him for attention. He was convinced, reluctantly, but with a hint of enthusiasm to coach the camogs for one year only.
Well, one year has passed into three. Coaching is as much about the coach learning as the players learning. So what has he learned? That camogs train their asses off. That they work as hard as any fellas he’s ever worked with. That the turnouts at training tend to be better. That they have an insatiable lust for many things, but mainly to learn and get better. That they can sledge with the best and that’s only their own teammates. At times in training he has to walk away shocked at the chat of young ladies but laughing all the same. And their skorts? A thing of wonder. Feminine, shapely and doing justice to the physiques they take the care to look after. When they lift and shape to strike it is a thing of rare beauty – much better than kicking the larger ball. Porcelain slender grip on the hurl, the wrists flick and sliotar travels. Absolute grace under pressure.
And our man has discovered that when they play, camogs play to win. And win they do, and boys do they enjoy it.
But that was three years ago, this is now. And he’s still there. Some sport with this camogie. Forget football, this is the real thing.
