Antrim's McCormick bringing a professional approach

You are what you eat, the saying goes, and Róisín McCormick certainly espouses that theory.

The Antrim attacking star hopes to be part of a high-performance set-up in a professional capacity in the future. She's not calling for camogie to be a full-time, paid pursuit, although she wouldn’t object given she would be one of the most marketable players in the game with her array of skills and cold-blooded finishing ability.

High-performance sport attracts full-time, professional sports coaches and support staff and McCormick’s ambition is to be involved in that sort of environment on a day-to-day basis.

The just-turned 22-year-old has a year to go on a sports science degree at TUD, who she helped win a historic first Ashbourne Cup last February with the victorious point from a free in extra-time against UCC. She is planning on pursuing a masters in sports nutrition thereafter.

Conveniently for training, as the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championships get into full swing, McCormick is now on a placement in Belfast with MoveTru, helping in the development of a performance tracker/injury prevention device.

"We are currently focusing on injury prevention of ACL ruptures and sagittal plane movement patterns," McCormick explains. "It’s fascinating."

And important, especially given the pandemic for ACL ruptures in female sportspeople and until recently, the lack of knowledge surrounding the reasons for that. But ground is being made.

Significant strides have been made too in terms of the use of professional expertise to prepare and condition camogie teams.

"The whole sports science aspect behind all the teams is definitely making a difference and I suppose more research is being done into women’s sports. We are a lot