Croke Park delivered another day of powerful sport yesterday when Galway won only their second ever All Ireland Senior camogie title in the Liberty Insurance sponsored showpiece for the sport.
A loud and enthusiastic crowd witnessed three finals with Kildare winning the Junior title and Galway coming good in both the Intermediate and Senior grades.
The same manager Tony Ward, took charge of both the Galway teams, surely a first on an All Ireland Finals day and it was an emotional victory for a team who have endured five final day losses since 1996 including three in the last five years.
The absence of Cork and Wexford, who have dominated the sport in recent times, echoed the sense of a breakthrough year for the sport that was also felt in hurling and it was a start of a sponsorship year that Liberty Insurance could never have forecast when signing up to a first ever joint support of the two codes back in the spring.
With the Senior Hurling final going to a replay it will be a first time that a single sponsors has enjoyed three September Sundays in the spotlight and all the benefit that goes with that in terms of brand awareness and loyalty among GAA audiences.
It was also fitting that the winners should sport the sponsorship branding of Supermacs, showing that a joint deal between Men’s and Women’s sport can deliver consistency and results.
It is an all too rare example of that joint branding, and does not exist enough elsewhere in gaelic games, or at the upper levels of rugby and soccer where O2 and 3 are displayed on the international men’s shirts but not on the women’s.
Women’s sport continues though to go from strength to strength with Aileen Reid winning a Silver medal at the World Triathlon Championships in London at the weekend, adding to Annalise Murphy’s European sailing title from earlier this month and the Women’s Rugby Team being recognised at the People of the Year Awards on Saturday night.
Internationally there is growing support for the revival of a Women’s Tour de France and large scale promotion of Women’s soccer in the UK and the United States.
Closer to home Sport for Business has secured the commitment of a major retail partner for the Sport for Daughters initiative which will be developed over the course of the autumn.
Women’s sport has lived in the shadows for longer than should ever have been the case but it is likely that within the next decade it will draw much closer to the parity of esteem that exists in business, arts and other areas of how society as a whole manages and entertains itself.
Yesterday at Croke Park was another step in the right direction.
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