Devane lights up Croke Park
By Thomas Conway
Having soldiered for years with this Tipperary side, Cáit Devane has all the attributes of a warrior, but few warriors play with as much grace and style as the 30-year-old Clonoulty-Rossmore clubwoman.
She has been the focal point of Tipp’s attack for innumerable years now, and yet she continues to grow and develop, to diversify and expand her game.
Devane is now a player of multiple dimensions. She poses an obvious threat from out the field - her sharpshooting is second to none. But she’s also a proven goal poacher, a player who reads the play so well that she can just drift into the most perfect positions, before finishing the move with gusto.
Her two goals last Saturday propelled Tipp into an All-Ireland semi-final. The second of the two was a haymaker - a spectacularly acrobatic strike, on the double, performed within a matter of milliseconds on the edge of the small square. If you haven’t seen it, watch it back. The goal was worth the entrance fee alone, yet Devane, typically, was keen to downplay her role.
The Clonoulty sharpshooter is as humble an individual as one is likely to find in the inter-county game. And that humility is part of what makes her so good.
“The hard work had been done out the field,” she said.
“Caoimhe (McCarthy) ran in, there were a couple of passes and eventually I found myself in the right spot. She gave me a beautiful pass and to be honest I was so close to the goals that my first instinct was just to swing at it. And lucky enough I got a good enough connection. Those kinds of things don’t always come off, but I suppose we’ll take it when it does. So yeah, it was a nice one.”
When it comes to assessing the game, however, Devane is a realist. She acknowledged that Tipp failed to ever really alight in the first-half, squandering several point-scoring opportunities and struggling to find their rhythm in general play. It was only after the interval that the Premier started firing, rapidly atoning for their first-half display.
“We had to come in at half-time and really dust ourselves down,” she added.
“The lads had some statistics that none of us were too happy with. But we responded well. We righted a lot of them wrongs in the second-half and we’re just thrilled with the win overall.”
Tipp have contested eight semi-finals in the past nine seasons, but they have never entered the last four in such electric form. The mood in the camp is, according to Devane, laden with enthusiasm. Training is intense. There’s a sense of vibrancy to the entire set-up, a feeling that Tipp are riding the crest of a wave, and the players are loving every minute of it.
“Competition for places is absolutely outrageous at the minute” Devane revealed.
“Denis (Kelly) and the lads are keeping us all on our toes, and look, that’s the way it should be. Like you’re never going to finish the match with the same fifteen players that you started with.
“And in fairness, the bench has been massive for us this year in terms of the impact of some of our substitutes. And it was great to see them get a run today, because we’ll need them again come the semi-final in two weeks’ time.”
However, many players Tipp use in that semi-final, whatever way they set up in terms of formation, they’re going to have to raise the intensity several levels higher than it was in Croke Park last Saturday. We’re down to the last four, and this is now a different ball game. Tipp are standing on the cusp of something spectacular. They have the players, they have the management team, they have the supporters. Everything is now about preparation and execution. Get those two things right and they could find themselves on Jones’ Road again come the first weekend of August.