Last year’s Blues Sisters documentary on the Dublin Ladies Football team was a real winner for Women’s sport attracting a massive audience beyond the normal hardcore for whom the sport has always been important.
It lifted their achievements on the field of play, winning a first All Ireland title since 2010, and gave a real insight to the dedication and preparation that went into that success.
It wasn’t the only documentary following Dublin players last year and tonight we will get to see ‘True Blues’ a similar fly on the wall documentary following the Dublin Camogie team throughout their season of achievement in 2017.
They did not scale the same heights as the footballers but go further in the Liberty Insurance All Ireland Championship than any Dublin team for 27 years.
True Blues will be broadcast on eir Sport this evening at 2130.
This is a story of waterlogged pitches, of Championship dreams and of the sometimes insane schedules that individual players have to juggle to perform in life and sport and of how Manager David Herity leaves his own five All Ireland titles with Kilkenny to wash the bibs after every training session.
It is a tale of the effort that goes into sporting teams up and down the country, Monday to Sunday every day of the week.
This is sport in the raw, from the highs of wins on the way to an All Ireland Semi Final to the battles with injury and mental wellbeing, as well as the sheer bloody-minded bravery of injured goalkeeper Síle Nic Coitir.
“You go again, and go again and go again” are the words of Herity ahead of the All Ireland Semi Final against Kilkenny.
Sometimes, in the kaleidoscope of our sporting world, the efforts of players can amount to little more than a one-line score read out on a news bulletin, about a game played out on a country pitch in front of friends and family, for no reward beyond the love of the game and a sense of personal challenge.
But that is never the whole story. Never even a tiny fraction of the importance it has in peoples lives.
It can sometimes be difficult to explain but when you’ve been there when you’ve seen the effort and felt the belief that goes in from the players, it is always worth going again for as long as you can.
True Blues is directed by Vincent McEntee and produced by Daniel Hegarty of Marmalade Films. It was produced for eir Sport with funding from the BAI Sound & Vision III funding scheme.
It goes out at 21:30 tonight and is well worth a watch.
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