Robert Downey and Ashling Thompson on a job well done for Cork sides in Thurles

THERE have been many great days for Cork sides in Thurles; last Sunday was up there with the best of them.

It’s not too often your senior hurling and camogie teams come away with a double victory and the scenes on the pitch after the second game summed it up.

The camogie side won the Munster championship after their win over Waterford and the men’s win over Tipperary should see them come out of the province in third spot.

That won’t be confirmed until next weekend, so they must wait and see.

Two players who played key roles for their respective sides were Robert Downey and Ashling Thompson.

Afterwards, they reflected on their wins with Robert saying the main objective was to win and see what happens after that.

After the Limerick game, we knew we needed to back it up coming up here. 

"They got a goal after 30 seconds, but we seemed to score straight away and it was a good response and I think we kind of just pushed on from there.

“Teams are always going to get a run, and especially a team with the quality that Tipperary have. It's just about staying calm, sticking to what we know, and sticking to what we practised and we did that. Thankfully the forwards did the business and responded straight away.

“Alan got a hat-trick and he always goes for goal when he can. In fairness to him, he did the business again today.

“But as I said we had one job to do and that was to beat Tipperary. Even when you are ahead though you can’t let up as they have some great forwards so we had to be on top of our game.

“All we can do now is wait and see what happens next weekend, it’s out of our hands so we can just watch on and see the outcome after that."

For Ashling, any day you win a Munster title is a good one and she was delighted to win the championship, especially having bowed out early last year.

“Maybe we didn’t take the Munster championship too seriously back in the day but any silverware we get now we'd be delighted and we're happy to get over the line against Waterford,” said Ashling.

“It was a close and tough game and I think if we won by 10 or 12 points, it just wouldn't do us any good. They’re a great team, they're constantly coming and they are going to be there and thereabouts again come the end of the year.

“It was no pushover and exactly what we needed ahead of the All-Ireland games starting next weekend. I’m delighted for all the squad and the players who came on made a big difference. You need that to win titles like this so it was great to see that happen.

“When you watch these girls coming off the bench, scoring points, doing their job. They are as good as any of the 15 that are starting.

We have three big games coming up in the All-Ireland series and we will need that bench for them. 

"It’s great to win today and that will give us a confidence boost ahead of next Saturday."