By Daire Walsh 

A week on from the high of their comeback triumph against Galway at the TUS Gaelic Grounds, Shauna Kelly is optimistic Cork can use their Lidl National Football League Division 1 final success as a springboard for a productive championship campaign in 2026.

Four points behind with just under eight minutes remaining last Saturday, the Leesiders embarked on a late scoring blitz in the Limerick venue to eventually claim a 2-8 to 0-9 victory at the expense of the Tribeswomen. This gave Cork their 13th Division One league title and puts them level on the competition’s roll of honour list alongside provincial rivals Kerry.

Joe Carroll’s side are set to do battle with the Kingdom in the coming weeks and will also face Tipperary and Waterford in what promises to be another compelling TG4 Munster senior football championship. 2025 saw Cork falling short in their bid to reach a provincial decider, but Kelly and her inter-county colleagues will be hopeful of a reversal of fortunes in this year’s series.

“That’s the hope anyway [to use the league victory as a springboard], but we know Munster is going to be an extremely hard challenge. Tipperary, Waterford, Kerry. Every game is going to be really, really tough, but hopefully we can just gain confidence from the league and continue playing the football that we have been playing,” acknowledged Kelly, who hails from Ballydesmond close to the Kerry-Cork border.

“I suppose we weren’t particularly happy with our performance in the first half [of the league final]. We had a lot of wides and then we just went in at half-time and we regrouped.

“We just said that we’d try and give our best shot at it, because probably last year we felt like we let ourselves down in the Division Two final [a defeat to Galway]. Galway are a really strong side, but we just kept our heads down and kept working. Eventually I suppose it paid off in the last few minutes.”

While Cork ultimately bounced back from a disappointing provincial campaign to reach the quarter-final stage of the TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship in 2025, Dublin comfortably overcame their challenge in the last-eight before reclaiming the Brendan Martin Cup with a showpiece win over Meath.

Although she missed out on their loss to the Jackies as a consequence of picking up an injury in their All-Ireland group stage victory against Mayo, Kelly is as eager as anyone on the Cork panel to make amends and enjoy a much more fruitful All-Ireland series this year.

“Last year we played Dublin, we were very disappointed. We’ll try to redeem ourselves from last year, I suppose. Maybe try and get a step further and just maybe perform better than what we did last year against them.

“We were very disappointed. Obviously I broke my jaw as well last year in the Mayo game, so I missed out on that Dublin game. Which was very disappointing as well.”

While last Saturday saw many of the Leeside panel picking up their first piece of national silverware, Kelly had already accumulated a list of honours that most players could only dream of.

Having first joined the Cork senior set-up back in 2012, the Araglen Desmond Bui defender was on board for five successive NFL Division 1 crowns from 2013 to 2017 and won a sixth league title at left corner-back when the Munster outfit defeated Galway in a top-tier decider at Parnell Park in May 2019.

Despite stepping away in the middle of the 2015 championship after being part of the squad for All-Ireland senior successes in the three previous years, Kelly returned to feature at wing-back when Cork squeezed past Dublin to secure the Brendan Martin Cup for a sixth consecutive season in 2016.

In those early days, Kelly lined out alongside a host of players who aren’t just considered to be Leeside legends, but all-time greats of ladies football itself.

“It was really great to play with all those players. They were brilliant and they taught us a lot while we were there. It was probably hard to break onto the panel because obviously there were excellent players like Geraldine O’Flynn, Brid Stack in the backs, Angela Walsh. To even be at training with them and learning from them,” Kelly recalled.

“They were leaders and they gave you confidence as well. If you did something well at training, they backed you and they let you know you did it well. Small things like that gave you confidence. They were a great team and we now have to make our own stamp on it. Seeing as it has been such a long gap since we last won something.”

Indeed, whereas their league final victory over Galway last weekend was their first national crown since beating the same opposition seven years earlier, the Leesiders will enter this year’s championship seeking to bridge a decade-long gap to their most recent All-Ireland final success.

Kelly did start in All-Ireland senior finals for Cork in 2018 and 2020, but both deciders saw them losing out to a Dublin side that were enjoying a period of dominance under manager Mick Bohan.

Having won the Brendan Martin Cup on four occasions during her early days on the panel, and now finding herself searching for a fifth Celtic Cross 10 years on, Kelly has learnt to cherish successes when they come and not to take anything for granted.

Now one of the more experienced players in the set-up following the retirement of some inter-county stalwarts in recent years, Kelly is also doing her best to provide guidance to the young hopefuls within the Cork squad.

“It has been a long time I suppose and definitely from knowing that now, Cork weren’t going to continue winning All-Irelands constantly. We lost a lot of players then and we had to rebuild a bit,” Kelly added.

“I’ve been there long enough and you have to take on that leadership role and just help the girls. The new girls coming in and try and give them some tips. Pointers on how they can improve their game or how they can help the team going forward. I’d like to think that is how the girls would see me.”

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