Galway ace Aoife Donohue hopes that a thrilling All-Ireland senior camogie championship final last Sunday week can act as a positive catalyst for the sport.

Donohue and her Tribe team mates defeated Cork in a cracking decider which went right to the wire at Croke Park, with skipper Carrie Dolan’s huge free along the sideline in injury-time proving the difference in a 1-14 to 1-13 for Galway as they denied the Rebels’ All-Ireland three-in-a-row bid.

An average of 353,000 turned in to RTE’s coverage of the game and, speaking after being named the PwC GPA Camogie Player of the Month award for July/August, Donohue hopes that game can continue to go from strength to strength.

“It was an unbelievable All-Ireland final and it’s got a lot of coverage since the game. That’s brilliant to see,” she is quoted saying by GAA.ie. “But you’d be hoping for more support going into next year, and that more people now will start watching the game. Going to games is the most important thing.

“It was a brilliant advertisement for camogie. You had everything on show: physicality, the skill levels, the conditioning of every player out on that pitch. You’d be hoping that we use it in a positive way and that people get on board now and start supporting us.

“Last year’s All-Ireland final was a brilliant All-Ireland final as well, and still you’re looking at the figures of the game last Sunday, and there was 28,000 people there. It’s just when you look at the men’s game and you see a stadium full, and even the ladies’ football, there was close to 50,000 there.

“You’re wondering why we’re not getting numbers at the games. But, look, it’s great everyone’s talking about the game on Sunday.

“I’m not sure what more we can do, only try and promote the game more. Media, that kind of stuff. During the year, when games are on, there wouldn’t even be much previews, compared to the men’s game, so that’s definitely an area that we could go after.

“Definitely, it has to start at the beginning of the season. In fairness, we’ve come a long way, we’re doing really well, but we’ve a long way to go still.”

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