THIS is Saoirse McCarthy’s favourite week of the year.

Days out from the All-Ireland senior camogie final, she is living her best life.

It’s familiar ground for the Cork star – her seventh All-Ireland final in nine years means she knows how to handle the week that leads up to the biggest game of the year on Sunday.

‘Seven finals in nine years is great going – until you look at the results, I suppose!’ McCarthy laughs.

‘I love this week, to be honest, especially being in and around Ballinspittle and being at home. You’re seeing everyone and getting well wishes, and there are little flags up and signs, and you know everyone is behind you and everyone is excited for you.

‘I suppose it’s the one week of the year that the light actually does shine on camogie, after all the other All-Ireland finals are done. So it’s exciting.’

The Courcey Rovers woman’s first All-Ireland senior final was in 2018.

Still a student in Kinsale Community School, she experienced a remarkable double-header in 2018 – named player of the match as Cork won the intermediate final before returning to the bench for the senior victory over Kilkenny.

‘Your first one is definitely special. Your first day out in Croke Park, you wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I do feel like every year you just have to enjoy the occasion,’ she explains.

This Sunday, her niece Robyn will support her aunt in Croke Park against Galway – it’s her first All-Ireland final.

‘She’s seven years old, and you can see the excitement it gives her. She’s telling all her friends that her auntie is playing in the match,’ McCarthy smiles.

‘It’s lovely to see, and it brings pride to your club, your family, everything.

‘You’re doing it for them as well, and if anything that focuses you even more on what you have to do, because you’re doing it for them.

‘Life’s too short. I don’t want to look back in ten years’ time and wish I could be a week out from an All-Ireland final and say, “Oh, I buried my head in the sand and didn’t take any of it in.”’

Saoirse McCarthy in full flight for Cork.

But once it gets to the night before a big match, McCarthy has a routine she follows. Her controllables.

She’s living in Cork city with Ciara O’Sullivan and Izzy Sheehan at the moment, but always heads home to Ballinspittle the night before every championship game.

‘I always go to Harbour View and go for a puck around, spend an hour or so there, and just go for a little walk. That would be part of my routine,’ she explains.

‘Then you go home and you’re kind of focused. That’s your hour to get your head right. You sleep in your own bed then.

‘I think you control as much as you can control. If you’re set to a routine and then something goes off, you don’t want that putting you off your game. So I try to keep as much free-flowingness as I can, because you never know what’s going to happen.’

Her big-game experience helps. The Courceys woman doesn’t get flustered.

Just turned 26, McCarthy already has three All-Ireland senior medals, four All-Stars and three successive player of the year nominations to her name. She’s a big-game player with high standards.

In May, McCarthy spoke to this paper ahead of the All-Ireland series and after an underwhelming league campaign and Munster championship. Player turnover and injuries meant manager Ger Manley had to turn to youth. But McCarthy’s expectations didn’t drop.

‘100 percent, that never changes. You go into every year wanting to win an All-Ireland. That’s the expectation with Cork camogie,’ she said at the time.

Three months on, Cork are back in a sixth straight All-Ireland senior final, having won all three All-Ireland Group 1 games against Galway, Tipperary and Waterford before beating Tipp again in the semi-final.

Saoirse McCarthy and Ciara O’Sullivan celebrate the win against Galway in the All-Ireland series group stage.

So, when did it click for these rising Rebels?

‘Look, there were a lot of new players that needed to be bedded in. We played a lot of challenge matches – a lot of challenge matches – probably one or two a week between the Munster and the championship games,’ McCarthy explained.

‘It was just getting game time into girls and getting that fluidity from one to 30, and getting used to playing with each other.

‘The big thing in the league was learning how to play with different people, what their characteristics are like, how long they can strike the ball, what they like to do, which hand they hand pass off.

‘I know that sounds really silly, but when you’re playing with the same people all the time, you get to learn their little quirks.

‘It was just a case of doing that. We went away and did a lot of work on it in training, but we also played a lot of matches and got game time into people.’

Beating Galway, 0-18 to 1-8, in the opening game of the All-Ireland series was a turning point.

‘We probably needed it more than they did in terms of needing to see where we were compared to everyone else,’ she says.

‘Then that belief started to grow in the following games.’

The injection of youth has lifted the group too. Step forward Millie Condon, a young gun from Ballinascarthy, just a 20-minute drive from McCarthy’s home village.

‘The likes of Millie and Ava Fitzgerald, they’ve been there the last couple of years. They’ve been playing in the B side against the A team – and they’ve been beating us!’ she says.

‘Obviously losing a couple of players or key starters gave them the opportunity, and by God have they taken it.

‘I’ve said this since I’d say Millie was 18 or 19 when she was first playing with MTU – I was like, “She is brilliant.”

‘You see how she gets around the field, she’s so fast, and she just brings something different to our team. She’s just a ball of energy going around the field. The way she goes about it with a smile on her face, it just brings energy to everyone else.’

That energy has helped Cork return to the All-Ireland final and a rematch against a Galway team that dashed the Rebels’ hopes of three in a row last season. The pressure is different this year – Cork are the challengers.

‘Whereas last year, we kind of expected to be there and going for three in a row, just to be back there now after everything that’s gone on in the last 12 months is a massive achievement for this group.

‘It is exciting because when you win a semi-final and get over something that maybe other people didn’t expect you to do, there’s a sense of achievement already.’

McCarthy has her own expectations for Sunday. She knows this day better than most, and also the contrasting feelings that exist. But she will deliver – Ger Manley knows this.

‘I was on the wing the last day, I was probably in centre for a lot of the other games, but it’s just whatever role you’re going to be given on a given day.

Every game is different. I’m happy out as long as we’re winning matches. We’re a team that thrives on – it’s not about who gets the score, it’s as long as the team is winning.’