By Michael McMullan

IT’S an eighth year in the Clonduff senior team for captain Erin Rafferty as they head into the club’s first Ulster Senior Championship final on Sunday, where they will take on defending champions Loughgiel.

The Down champions led the Shamrocks by a point at half-time of last year’s semi-final before being hit with four second-half goals.

Clonduff had two All-Ireland intermediate titles tucked away from 2019 and 2022 before moving up to the top level.

Rafferty had mixed both camogie and football from her underage until opting to park the big ball in recent years. Injuries pointed towards picking one sport, and camogie got the nod.

In her final year of minor, in 2018, she came into the side during the league before making her championship debut in a semi-final win over Ballygalget. By the following March, she was an All-Ireland champion.

“That set the standard,” Rafferty recalled. “Players who have been on the team longer were saying it was absolutely brilliant, but it wasn’t normal.

“When you set the standards high like that then, losing is a lot harder and we figured that out in 2020.”

Defeat kicked and it kicked hard. But it wasn’t the end. Clonduff go into this weekend’s Ulster final with 11 senior titles to their name.

Their All-Ireland success inspired younger players to come into the setup and, mixed with the leaders, it drove the standards.

“There’s Sara-Louise Graffin, Fionnuala Carr and Paula O’Hagan. This was their 11th championship but 2019 was the first year they had got out of Ulster and into the All-Ireland final,” Rafferty said.

Clonduff’s level of consistency is built on solid foundations. Talent, work and preparation within the club is one part.

Secondly, their players were coming back from the county scene having been exposed to camogie from all over Ireland.

“We currently still have eight or nine on the county senior panel and they’re away every weekend up until maybe June or July time,” Rafferty pointed out.

“They’re playing the highest standard of camogie, so then to bring that back into the (Clonduff) team, we went up a level.”

It was the same with the county minors, taking players out of their comfort zone and bringing them back with those extra layers of development.

The push within the county came after Down lifted the All-Ireland Junior title in 2014.

“Across the county, the standard increased and the camogie championship got a lot more competitive,” Rafferty added. “Players themselves were getting better and were bringing all the skills back to club, pushing everybody on.”

Injury and work commitments led to Rafferty stepping away from county camogie last season.

She is now in her first season as Clonduff captain, a role she said is made easier by the quality and experience within the four walls of the dressing room.

Part of the remit is leading during the league when there are younger players to be blooded into the team. There is always the hope that when the Clonduff pack are fully back after the county scene, the floodlights are still on in November.

“Having many leaders in the team, it allows training to be more intense and it allows us to take younger ones along the journey as well.”

Collectively, the competitive environment pushes everybody on. There are more contenders for a place than there are starting jerseys. That in itself keeps everyone on their toes.

“One wrong move and somebody could come on and have the best game,” Rafferty added. “Then, that’s a position gone as easy as that.”

Her own role in defence has been picking up a key opponent, stretching all the way back to being assigned to mark Eglish’s Leanne Donnelly in the 2018 Ulster campaign.Rafferty’s mentality is simple. Lock into the job, hope everyone can do theirs and everything else will follow. It’s selfless but the team comes first. Always.

Having played the Shamrocks last year and being in the crowd at their recent win over Sleacht Néill, Rafferty knows the drill this Sunday.

“A couple of goals just killed the game completely,” she said. “They’re unbelievable at taking their goals, and route one is the way they go.

“We can take a lot from our performance last year in itself without even really analysing last week’s game between Loughgiel and Sleacht Néill. We can probably take a lot away from it and we learnt a lot about ourselves. We’re just hoping we can right the wrongs from maybe that push on, bring more intensity and hopefully the result is there in the end.”