Trailblazer Emma Hurley has a year to remember

BY KIERAN McCARTHY

EMMA Hurley is a dual star with a difference – she combines history-making soccer exploits with All-Ireland winning road-bowling heroics.

The Drinagh teenager (15) has enjoyed an incredible year, both on the pitch and on the road. Whatever she touched turned to gold.

Emma Hurley, with her West Cork Sports Star Paudie Palmer Youth quarterly award, pictured with her family; from left, JJ, Rory, Eoin and Caroline, at the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery. (Photos: Martin Walsh)

First, let’s look at this young trailblazer’s soccer feats. This year Emma became the first local girl ever to be selected on the West Cork U14 team for the prestigious Kennedy Cup in Limerick. This is a breakthrough moment for schoolgirls’ soccer locally. It deservedly made headlines, with Cork City Women’s FC tweeting: ‘great to see young girls getting these chances and being brave enough to take them.’

Emma earned her place in the West Cork squad, with head coach Steve Bowden explaining: ‘Emma turns up, trains and gets stuck in. She is not treated any differently, as a player, to the rest of the squad.’

She was part of a history-making West Cork team that finished third overall, the best-ever placing of the team at the Kennedy Cup.

‘It was a great experience, I was really happy to be there and I enjoyed every moment,’ Emma said, as she accepted a West Cork Sports Star Paudie Palmer Youth quarterly award recently.

‘It was a great accomplishment when we came third,’ added the soccer-mad teen who is now lining out with Lakewood in Ballincollig. The Katie McCabe fan is setting her sights high and wants to see how far she can go – and if it’s anything like how far she can throw a road bowl, the soccer world is her oyster.

In July, the month after the Kennedy Cup, Emma enjoyed her finest triumph yet on the road – the current MICC Dunmanway third-year was crowned All-Ireland U16 girls’ champion after a dominant display against Ulster champion Megan O’Reilly in Ballincurrig. Her emphatic win, by almost three bowls, was eye-catching for a number of reasons, one of those being it was her first All-Ireland final appearance. Ice cool, she wasn’t fazed.

‘I didn’t expect to go that far when I started bowling,’ Emma explained. ‘I went with my friend one day, liked it and I just kept going.

‘The All-Ireland was really enjoyable, the celebrations after were great and all the support I received meant a lot.’

Emma is U16 again in 2024 and her aim is to defend her Munster and All-Ireland titles. You wouldn’t bet against this all-rounder who will continue to make headlines in all her sports.