“Well, it helps that I’m a footballer,” laughs 20-year-old Abigal Ring who is already making a name for herself in a different code from her legendary hurling grand-uncle.
She was named ‘Player of the Match’ in the 2022 All-Ireland Minor final and last year, despite being a fresher, was one of seven UCC players to make the O’Connor Cup All Star team.
Cloyne may be historically known as a hurling stronghold, but girls and ladies’ football is now thriving in the East Cork club, whose girls now have plenty of totemic role models of their own to rival ‘Ringy’.
Ring recalls loading up and heading to Croker every September of her youth to cheer on their heroes.
“We had such an inspiration in the amazing Cork team that won the 10 in-a-row,” she explains. “Me and Aoife Healy grew up together saying ‘we want to be like them.’ We always wanted to play for Cork.
“We actually only had a ladies’ football club in Cloyne growing up. There was no camogie team there at the time so we just fell in with the boys initially and played hurling with St Colman’s. Hurling was a bit rough for us with the lads but, in football, we could give them a shoulder and get stuck in.”
HUNGER
Now the clubmates are both starring for UCC and Cork and Healy is also an emerging inter-county dual player.
They’ve certainly got plenty of motivation for the 2025 AIG O’Connor Cup, which culminates in semi-finals/final weekend in QUB Belfast on March 14-15. UCC haven’t won the premier third-level competition for 13 years and had their hearts broken in last year’s final, where Ring scored 0-4 (1f).
“Obviously it was a real honour to get there and all the other girls were like ‘you’re so lucky getting to the final in first year,’ because they hadn’t got there in a few years.
“The O’Connor was on in Cork (MTU) as well which was brilliant for us. We had lost the league final to DCU by a couple of points so we really wanted to prove something, went in with a completely new mindset, took it to extra-time and just lost to them by two points.
“There was real hurt there but it was brilliant to get to the final and to get a colleges’ All Star as well,” the social science student says.
The hunt starts again now in their home opener in the Mardkye on Thursday, February 6; a Munster derby against MTU Kerry (7pm).
Being managed by the Rebelettes’ new boss is a big help to all of UCC’s inter-county players, not just their large contingent of Cork Seniors.
“We’re so lucky to have Joe Carroll balancing things. He will just pull us out from county if we have too much training or our next priority is the college, so that helps us avoid burnout.
“Colleges’ football is brilliant and different to anything else you’ve ever experienced, because there are girls from all over the country,” Ring enthuses.
“I’m living at home but have already made really good friends in Tipperary and Waterford and some of my best friends now are girls I’ve met through O’Connor Cup football.”
