Cork’s ladies footballers had a Jackie Tyrrell moment yesterday

Cork are TG4 All-Ireland ladies senior football champions for the 10th time in 11 seasons. It finished 0-12 to 0-10 as the Rebelettes won the five in a row.

Losing a 10-point lead and falling short by a point a year ago was shattering, but continued a trend which began in the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final when they got nine points ahead of Cork and still lost by four.

Dublin battled all the way but couldn’t do enough to prevent a second successive final defeat against Cork.

The win means that Rena Buckley and Briege Corkery have now 10 All-Ireland senior football medals and 16 in total that compliments their camogie success.

The teams were level on five occasions in the first-half and, indeed, were deadlocked at 0-5 apiece heading back down the tunnel after an error-strew first period.

“She’s an unbelievable player and has given unbelievable service to Cork, so on an ordinary day everyone would have massive respect for her, but today she was devastated, and she just wanted us to go out and do what she couldn’t do”.

Cork suffered a blow in the 15th minute when Geraldine O’Flynn, matchwinner past year, went off to be replaced by Róisín Phelan.

Points from Carla Rowe and Lyndsey Davey brought Dublin back into the game but the girls in blue struggled to cope with Valerie Mulcahy – who again extended their lead.

Cork were in merciless form at the back, hellbent on ensuring Dublin wouldn’t find a way through.

Dublin: C Trant; O Carey, M Ní Scanaill, F Hudson; S Furlong, S Finnegan, C Barrett; M Lamb, S Goldrick; N Healy, A Connolly (0-01), C Rowe (0-06, 5f); N McEvoy (0-01), L Davey (0-01), H Noonan.

Cork: M O’Brien; M Ambrose, B Stack, A Barrett; V Foley, D O’Reilly, G O’Flynn; R Buckley (0-01), B Corkery; C O’Sullivan (0-01), A Hutchings, A Walsh; V Mulcahy (0-07, 6f), Á O’Sullivan, D O’Sullivan (0-02).