Cork to dominate as PwC Camogie All-Stars cap a great season

A PwC Camogie All-Star always comes as a rich reward at the end of a standout season of individual brilliance.

The All-Ireland winners typically dominate the selection and it's likely to be the same in 2023 with Cork primed to pick up as many as eight spots on the team of the year.

Yet back on the first weekend of June, it looked like this was a conversation Matthew Twomey's side may not even be a part of.

Cork's three-point loss to Galway in Round 1 of the Championship was the team's fourth consecutive defeat across three different competitions and left them scrambling to rescue their season.

As much as PwC camogie senior player of the year nominee Amy O'Connor claimed after Cork's eventual All-Ireland final win over Waterford - a game in which the team captain scored a remarkable hat-trick and 3-07 in total - that they never panicked, it was still a challenge of Everest proportions.

For starters, Cork had to play an All-Ireland quarter-final while group winners Waterford and Galway advanced straight to the championship's last four.

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise that Cork had to play Kilkenny in a quarter-final though because their gutsy one-point win provided them with a springboard to success. They bounded on to the sweetest of semi-final wins over Galway before hitting Waterford for 5-13 in the Croke Park final. A 29th All-Ireland win was Cork's, their first since 2018. Few can say they saw it coming.

O'Connor was a metronome in attack, leading by the excellence of her example with 4-20 scored in the knock-out stages alone. In the final, her 10 scores came from 10 scoring opportunities. A 100% rate of efficiency on camogie's grandest day.

Her colleague, Saoirse McCarthy, a ball of craft all summer at midfield,