Saoirse McCarthy misses out on top gong but happy for Cork colleague Laura Hayes

Saoirse McCarthy missed out on being crowned the PwC GPA Camogie Player of the Year after receiving a second consecutive nomination, but the Cork dynamo's joy for team-mate Laura Hayes was as genuine as you could get.

For sure, McCarthy would have liked to have gotten the nod, not least because her family and loved ones were in attendance, but Hayes is a long-time member of that latter category ever since they first crossed paths more than a decade ago.

There is an interview with the pair of them conducted for Clare TV on YouTube after they had beaten the Banner in the All-Ireland minor semi-final in 2018. They would go on to win that championship and then complete a memorable double as starters on the intermediate title-winning outfit the following September.

McCarthy recalls it well.

"It’s so funny," says the Courcey Rovers star. "We were warned before it, 'Don't talk about training or anything like that,’ and then your man said the word ‘training’. I was like, ‘training.’ I didn’t know what to say. We were babies."

McCarthy collected Hayes in Cork on the trip up to Dublin for the PwC All-Star awards function at Croke Park on Friday night.

"We were having a chat, and I was like, ‘This is class. We wouldn’t be here today without each other.’ I was always so competitive. I always wanted to beat Laura, and Laura always wanted to beat me."

They drove each other.

"Oh 100%. Since we were about 13. If Laura had done it, I wanted to do it twice. She’s so fit and I just always wanted to be able to run like she can and she would find something in me. She would say, ‘I want to tackle you now and get better at that.’

"We’re probably 11 years playing together and competing with each other. I've always, always compared myself to her. I