By Paul Keane

Amy O'Connor admitted it was a rare All-Ireland final experience when simply everything she touched turned to gold.

From 10 scoring opportunities, the Cork camogie captain struck 3-7 during Cork's big win over Waterford. A hat-trick of goals, four points from frees, one from a '45 and another two points from open play, including the very first of the game. And not a single wide or shot dropped short.

It was an inspirational personal performance that propelled Cork to a 28th Glen Dimplex senior title and a first since 2018.

O'Connor didn't even know she'd scored a hat-trick until someone told her afterwards. It was one of those rare occasions when she entered the zone and found that things simply came easy, admitting the sliotar even felt a little different coming off the bas of her hurley.

The great irony was that she went out to the training field 24 hours earlier to practise her frees and couldn't find the range at all.

"I don't think one went over the bar," smiled O'Connor. "I thought they were going to kill me! I suppose you do have days where everything you hit goes over and it's nice to have those days because they don't come around too often. Yeah, I suppose when you hit the sliotar, it's a different feeling on the bas of the hurley, so it was nice to get one of those days today."

The St Vincent's attacker, also a talented soccer player, spoke of her pride at performing to such a level on the biggest day in the camogie calendar.

"A very proud day for me obviously," she said. "I come from quite a small junior club on the northside of the city. We haven't had too much success at club level.

"So it is nice to be able to do something like this and to represent the club and the area. I didn't realise I had scored a hat-trick until someone said it after the match, which is probably a good thing because we were just so focused on the next ball, the next pass, whatever it might be.

"That might sound cliched but that's the way we drove it for the last three, four months. It was a building process, everything was a process. We played a certain way. We were adaptable the whole time and our focus was always on the next thing, the next thing.

"So I didn't really think too much about it in the game, what I'd scored. It's obviously nice. It is probably something that you wouldn't dream of really."

Waterford beat Cork in the Munster championship, back in late April, but found it an altogether different experience facing their neighbours on All-Ireland final day.

O'Connor was surprised that people presumed Cork were struggling mid-way through the season when they lost to Galway three times and Waterford also.

"To be honest, while people were saying we went through a bad patch, there was only once or twice that we actually played poorly," she said. "We actually performed quite well throughout that bad patch. I think the most important thing was that we stuck together as a group."

After coming up a point short of Kilkenny in a dramatic finale last year, it was redemption of sorts for Cork manager Matthew Twomey and his players.

"Myself and Laura Tracey were sitting here last year after losing it and I suppose we were drained and we couldn't see how we would get over the line," said Twomey. "When we came back this year, we decided a focus obviously was to win the All-Ireland. We went through a bad patch in the middle of the year and I suppose a lot of people wrote us off.

"In our own way, we used that as a spur. After we got beaten by Galway in Athenry, we had a real long chat with ourselves. We were going into the Down game under pressure, the Clare game under pressure and every game really we have been under ferocious pressure. Even today we were under fierce pressure coming up.

"These players are just incredible, the more their backs are to the wall, the better they got. What we got today, they totally deserve. They have just been immense."