O'Connor Cup's ticking clock on Aoife O'Rourke's agenda

She may not have been involved this weekend, but having already featured in a brace of finals at the grade, Galway attacker Aoife O'Rourke already has her eye on making it back to the business end of the O’Connor Cup in 2025.

Back in 2022 — while still a first year student in the college — O’Rourke appeared off the bench for University of Limerick as they edged out Munster rivals UCC in an O’Connor Cup showpiece held in Dublin. Twelve months later, she was selected at left corner-forward and scored a point as UL lost out to an impressive DCU outfit on a scoreline of 3-14 to 1-13 in the University of Galway Connacht GAA Air Dome.

Meanwhile, the finals weekend of the 2024 Ladies HEC Championships got underway on Thursday and is set to reach its conclusion later today with the Moynihan Cup, Lynch Cup and O’Connor Cup deciders at MTU Cork.

While O’Rourke and her UL colleagues were disappointed not to reach the semi-final stage of the latter, next year will see the Galwegian entering into her final year as a biomedical engineering student and she is hopeful of adding another top-level college title to her list of honours.

"It was a good day that day. Having that experience in first year has just fed the hunger a bit more and obviously I wanted to have it again. Aoife Molloy and Lynsey Noone (also from Galway) were playing that day," O’Rourke recalled of her success in the 2022 O’Connor Cup final.

"Then playing with the likes of say Fiadhna Tangney and Hannah O’Donoghue from Kerry, girls that are just absolutely unreal. It’s a cool thing with college to be able to play with girls from other counties. This year not to get to the weekend is a massive disappointment, but they are the highs and lows of sport.

"We’ll just have to try and