'We talked about pride in the jersey and all that'... goal ace Ciara Foley on Saturday's second chance at glory

When Meath played Kerry in the National Camogie League final at Croke Park back in April Ciara Foley wasn’t part of the team.

It’s only since the championship started that the Killyon player has begun to get the opportunity to nail down a regular place on the starting 15 and she has taken her chance - with both hands.

She got her big opening when she was selected to start against Laois as Meath got their All-Ireland Intermediate Championship campaign up and running at Trim in late May. Meath won 6-19 to 2-3 with Foley contributing 1-4. She was on her way.

Since then she has succeeded in copperfastening a regular spot on the team and it would have been a major surprise if she didn’t once more start on Sunday.

From not featuring to playing in an All-Ireland final at Croke Park before a big crowd (the attendance for the day was just over 30,000) and the TV cameras. It has been quite a journey for the young player in a short space of time. The term ‘meteoric’ just about covers it.

Not only did Foley play on Sunday, she helped herself to a goal. She was in the right place at the right time to strike the ball to the net in the middle of a mother and father of a goalmouth scramble. Foley reacted the quickest, her forwards’ instincts on red alert.

It wasn’t a classic strike she admitted that herself afterwards. It won’t be included in any ‘Camogie Goals of the Decade’ compilation but what does it matter. For evermore she can say she scored a goal in Croke Park in an All-Ireland final. How many players can claim that?

Of course her uncle Kevin Foley also managed that feat, when he scored Meath’s goal to finally settle the Meath v Dublin saga in 1991. Ciara also tagged on a fine point in the second-half, again showing the instincts of a true forward by arrowing the ball between the posts as Meath came bounding back.

Not, mind you, that there is any fear the clearly self-effacing Killyon player is going to go around boasting about her accomplishments. That’s what forwards are there to do, she suggests. Score goals and points and, like any true attacker, she would like to get more of them. More and more.

While she is affable and modest, Foley is also clearly a player with ambition who wants to improve all the time. It’s, no doubt, one of the reasons why she has graduated from club camogie to performing on the big stage in All-Ireland finals.

“The ball dropped for me, there was a goalmouth scramble. Next thing the ball ended up in the net. Fluke goals is what I’m getting at the moment, unfortunately, either that or I’m hitting opposition goalkeeper with my shots. I should be more clinical but I’m getting there,” she added as she stood outside the Meath dressing room.

“The goal gave us a good start but Derry are an excellent side, we knew, despite our bright start we certainly weren’t going to walk it. I’m really proud of the girls and the way we kicked on after going seven, eight points down.”

Foley gave an insight into what it was like in the dressing room during the half-time break when Meath trailed 1-1 to 1-8. She gave a sense too of the resolve among the players and their collective desire to do something about an alarming, and rapidly deteriorating situation. It was the kind of response that indicated why the team reached Sunday’s final - and why they might yet end up with the trophy.

“We came in and said ‘look we haven’t played yet.’ Brendan (Skehan) was encouraging. We didn’t need anyone to tell us that we hadn’t played well, that we didn’t do ourselves any favours, we just knew ourselves we weren’t playing near as well as we can.

“We talked about going back out giving our best and proving that we were better than we showed in the first-half. We talked about the pride in the jersey and all that. That was something that drove us on in the second-half. It was then we really showed what we are capable of and hopefully next weekend we’ll show it again in the replay, this time for the full hour.”

One abiding memory you suspect Foley will remember, and in a way savour, for the rest of her life, was the noise that filled Croke Park. She described how down on the pitch the players were enveloped in a vortex of shouts and cheers and roars. It was different, she suggested, to what’s heard when you are up in the stands.

She also outlined how when she heard the shouts and roars of Meath supporters it gave her and her colleagues a tremendous boost; like a cushion of air lifting them up. “It was incredible to hear all that noise, to play in that atmosphere, and it helped us. We soaked it up and we used it to carry us forward in the second-half. We used all that encouragement, we could hear it and it was great.”

Foley admitted she couldn’t watch as Aoife Minogue hit the injury-time free narrowly wide. She did watch the Dunderry player step up to take the free and was full of admiration for her courage. “Aoife is a phenomenal player, sometimes they go over, sometimes they don’t. The pressure was on her shoulders it was a big shot. You couldn’t fault her for her performances every game, she is brilliant.”

This week Foley will be, like her colleagues, preparing for the replay in Clones, for another shot at the big time.

No matter what happens from here on in, Ciara Foley can always say she scored a goal in Croke Park - and in an All-Ireland final too.