As we look at some of our Senior intercounty stars that are lining out for their county during this year’s Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Championships this week we caught up with Offaly captain Tríona McDonald.
It was a tough League campaign for Offaly but the captain believes that they need to learn from this experience and draw the positives from it "Focus on our own game of play and players not the oppositions. Make mistakes, if you don’t you aren’t trying hard enough. Try and focus on the next match, don’t dwell on what went wrong but try and improve on it."
4) How do you prepare the week before an important match in regard to diet and training?
Eat right, sleep right, use the wall ball as much as possible, think about the match and how I believe I’ll play. Try not to get too nervous. I listen to music to try and settle myself. Plenty of water.
5) Who has been the toughest player you have marked so far in your career?
Cait Devane and Catriona Parrock
6) Is there any particular music or songs you like to listen to before a match to pump yourself up?
Everything and anything, random mix; Rap, Old school and Dance.
7) Who is your greatest role model in sport?
TJ Reid and Katie Taylor as well as my Father.
8) How did you start playing Camogie? How old were you?
I played hurling with my local club first as there was no camogie club. I was 13/14 when I started playing.
As for this year's Championship Tríona believes that Cork's Orla Cotter and Galway's Grace Teehan are two players in particular that counties must pay particular attention to but when it comes to identifying where the O'Duffy Cup will head come September she is firmly on the fence "I don’t think I could pick one individual team, each match in the championship will be a challenge in itself."
