AISLING MAHER and her Dublin team-mates know they must keep a tight leash on Derry tomorrow after their male counterparts proved that every underdog has its day.
Last weekend’s defeat to Waterford ended the Dubs’ hopes of advancing to an All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship quarter-finals.
But the campaign is not yet over for the Sky Blues, who know that losing the basement battle against the Oak Leafers would condemn them to a relegation play-off against Wexford.
Maher admitted: “Look, it’s hard. Nobody ever wants to be playing Championship matches knowing that you can’t progress and get to where you want to be.
“Ultimately that’s the knockout stages and going on from there, so I guess it’s a difficult one to keep the focus and to keep the mood right in the camp.
“But the reality is obviously we have a huge game ahead of us on Saturday and Derry are going to be bringing a big challenge.
“They’re in the same position we are — they need a win to keep themselves in a good position and to avoid going towards the bottom of the table and relegation and all the rest.
“We’ve no doubt that they’re going to bring a stiff challenge.
“If we don’t have our heads right and if we’re not in the right space going into it, they’ll punish us for it.
“You’ve no option to kind of sit down and lick your wounds.
“You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and reset pretty quickly to just try and start righting some of the wrongs from last weekend.”
While the hosts are strongly fancied to overcome Derry at Parnell Park, the seismic upset pulled off by the Dublin hurlers against Limerick last weekend serves as a reminder of the importance of taking nothing for granted.
Speaking as Toyota Ireland announced a new three-year partnership with the Camogie Association and the GAA/GPA, Maher said: “It doesn’t matter who the favourites are or who’s expected to win, especially when you get to Championship time of year.
“Anything can happen on any given day when you have 15 against 15.
“Derry have a lot of good players as well. And I guess the Dublin hurlers getting that big win as underdogs does have us acutely aware of how quickly an upset can happen or how quickly any Championship team can be beaten if anybody’s not fully prepared going into it on the day.”
Having reached the 2024 All-Ireland semi-finals, Maher had high hopes for Dublin this season.
However, their absence from the business end of the Championship demonstrates just how competitive things are at the top.
The 2017 All-Star said: “I think it’s a great thing for camogie, even though it’s not a great thing for Dublin camogie this year.
“It probably shows just how little there is between a lot of those top and mid-table teams. There’s not huge gaps between anyone.
“Obviously Waterford will play Galway at the weekend for that top spot in the group and it could go either way.
“I think either of those two teams could also have not made quarter-finals in our group.
“It’s really positive that there’s so little between teams.
“Obviously for ourselves in Dublin last year, getting to the semi-final was a huge step in the right direction.
“To build on that, we would have wanted to make sure that we got that far again, if not further.
“Unfortunately it hasn’t happened that way but the path forward is rarely smooth. You’ll have ups and downs along the way.
“What’s probably more important for us is how we respond to this in the short term, hopefully getting a win at the weekend, and in the longer term trying to get ourselves back into the knockout stages next year.”
