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Women in Sport

07th Sep 2020

Cait Devane wins ruck with broken hurl, collects a new one, almost scores incredible point

Niall McIntyre

You can break her hurl but that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped Cait Devane.

Clonoulty Rossmore pulled off one of the shocks of the weekend in the Tipperary camogie championship when they knocked Burgess-Duharra out at the semi-final stage, and Cait Devane was in that unstoppable zone.

The 2019 All-Star is widely renowned as the most gifted player in the Premier county with her golden wrists and razor-like ball-striking lighting up not just the club scene, but the county scene in recent years.

A scoring extraordinaire, the west Tipperary star regularly racks up tallies in the double figures but in Sunday’s county semi-final, it was a point-attempt which dropped agonisingly short that had onlookers taken aback.

With half a hurl, she was able to win a ruck in a sea of bodies but the best was yet to come. The fact that her brother John, a county championship winning manager and former Tipperary hurler, was on hurley-carrying duty certainly paid dividends as the siblings showed tremendous understanding to switch sticks in the smoothest of fashions.

Devane’s awareness, to drop her hurl and collect a new one is breath-taking as she powers on down the wing without losing speed. By now, the whole of Clonoulty Rossmore was willing her strike over the bar for what would have been one of the most impressive points you could ever see.

Unfortunately, it dropped short but Devane and Clonoulty Rossmore had done enough as they stretched on to win by two and to set up a county final with Drom and Inch.

Video credit to Padraig Hogan SportsFocus photography who streamed the game.

PS, the bar has been raised for hurley carriers everywhere.