'Massive addition to any team' - The former Down duo now in Galway Cork All-Ireland final clash
WHEN DOWN LOST their All-Ireland intermediate camogie semi-final this year, former player Fionnuala Carr thought of two forwards who could have made a difference.
Relegated from senior for the 2025 season, Down were closing in on a swift return to camogie’s top tier. Kerry, who had defeated them by two points in the group stage of this year’s championship, stood in their way.
60 minutes from a trip to Croke Park and a chance to reclaim their senior status. However, the result remained the same in their final-four clash as the Kingdom prevailed by 3-12 to 0-16.
The margin of their defeat was five points, an amount that Sorcha McCartan and Niamh Mallon could certainly have accounted for.
But with Mallon now suiting up for Galway and McCartan a firmly established member of the Cork forward line, Down were forced to play without their assistance. It’s been that way for a while now as the pair continue their camogie journeys away from home. They faced off in the 2023 championship when Mallon scored 10 points in a 3-19 to 1-10 Group 1 defeat to Cork. And they were on opposite sides for last year’s All-Ireland final too in their respective Cork and Galway colours. They’ll do it all again this weekend too.
“They make a big difference to the teams that they play in [now],” Carr explains. “So, you can imagine the difference that they would make to the likes of a Down team who are quite young.
“Niamh Mallon is worth at least five, six points. Sorcha could chip in with two or three and that’s a ten-point swing in a game. Not only their scoring capabilities but also their work rate and their physicality as well.”
Carr shared a dressing room with McCartan and Mallon before her retirement from inter-county camogie in 2021. Their ability was obvious from the start.
All three were key players on the Down team that won the 2020 All-Ireland intermediate final. Their final against Antrim was played in December that year on account of the schedule reshuffle caused by the Covid pandemic, and Cavan’s Breffni Park hosted the occasion.
Carr wasn’t offended that her county didn’t get to celebrate the end of a 22-year wait for All-Ireland intermediate success in Croke Park. She was just grateful to be able to play, and avenge the hurt of their 2018 All-Ireland final defeat to Cork.
“We had been knocking on the door the year before. We had reached an All-Ireland final in 2018, completely unknown to even ourselves, to be honest. Then in 2019, we didn’t perform in an All-Ireland semi-final.
“And then in 2020, we all regrouped. It was the year of Covid, so we did a lot of work on our own with gyms and fitness. We noticed that year that we were very physically fit and very physically strong.
“We had Sorcha, we had my sister, Sara-Louise [Graffin], and we had Aimee McAleenan in a half-forward line. Sorcha must be 5’10″, or 11″. Sara-Louise is 5’9″, or 5’10″, and Aimee must be 5’8″.
“So, they’re all strong girls and very athletic. Then you had Niamh Mallon in the full-forward line, and she was your target woman.”
Mallon finished that All-Ireland final with 2-3 from play, scooping the Player of the Match award in the process. Six years before that, she captained Down to a junior All-Ireland title at just 19 years of age, but Mallon was already an experienced player for Down.
Carr reckons she was on the squad for three or four seasons at that point, displaying skills and mental fortitude that belied her young age.
Mallon’s talent was widely known within Down camogie circles from early doors. Carr can still remember the first murmurings of “a young girl from Portaferry” who was about to make a splash in the game.
“I think Niamh was maybe only 16 at the time and you’re sort of wondering, ’Does she cut it? Will she be able for the physicality? Will she commit?’
“There’s so many young talented people out there but they don’t commit and give the dedication whereas Niamh ticked every single box that you would want in a player.
“She’s so committed and dedicated to what she does. She gives the best out of herself all the time. She’s never done practicing. She’s in the wall ball all the time.
“She came in then and she didn’t look out of place at all. After a year or two, she was becoming one of your main focal points in an attack at 18 years of age in a senior camogie team which is no mean feat to be honest.”
McCartan comes from a dual-code background, but at one stage, football was her primary sport. A daughter of 1994 All-Ireland winner Greg, she broke through to the Down senior ladies team before an opportunity with the county’s camogie team materialised.
In a 2021 interview published on the RTÉ Sport website, McCartan explained that watching Down compete in the 2018 All-Ireland final planted the seed in her mind. And when then-Down camogie manager Martina Rooney invited her in the following season, she decided to take a chance.
“At that point football was No 1 still. I went and gave it a go and I just seen the attitude that everyone brought. I was just like, ‘this is serious. If I want to be involved, I have to be serious and I have to put it as a priority’. So then I did.”
Similar to her transition into the current Cork team, McCartan nailed her audition with Down. Carr, of course, was looking on in awe at her development from a talented dual-code specialist to a vital part of the Down attack.
“Sorcha was very young when she came into our team. Down were competing then at an intermediate level and were there or thereabouts.
“And getting a bonus addition like Sorcha makes a difference in being a one-point defeat or a one-point win.”
It was a combination of work and university commitments that sent McCartan and Mallon down diverging paths.
McCartan initially relocated to Cork to complete a college internship with the biomedical company Stryker. She maintained her commitment to Down for the 2021 campaign and that long-awaited return to the senior championship, but the arrangement was unsustainable. Along with changing county colours, she transferred from her local Castlewellan club to the famous St Finbarr’s in Cork city.
This Sunday, she will feature in her third consecutive All-Ireland final with Cork. She posted 1-1 in their 2023 triumph over Waterford and added two points off the bench when they went back-to-back last year against Galway. As Cork chase the elusive three-in-a-row this weekend, McCartan continues to bolster Ger Manley’s attack.
Niamh Mallon also tried to make it work when she moved to Galway for work as a sports scientist with Orreco in 2018. She called time on that challenging commute last year as she linked up with Cathal Murray’s squad after joining the Sarsfields club.
Her debut season ended with All-Star selection, a fitting tribute to her 1-21 in five championship matches including an All-Ireland final appearance which yielded one point from play. But speaking to the media recently, she admitted to struggling in a new team environment last year. She insisted that the cause was internal, rather than the product of any hostility from the those around her.
“I think that comes just from seeing the likes of the Corks and Kilkenny’s and the Galways always competing at inter-county level,” says Carr.
“While it is very competitive at intermediate and you don’t get an easy game, you always wonder could you have made the step up? When you are there you’re seeing people who have multiple All-stars or All-Ireland medals and you’re kind of looking at them in awe.
“Her being able to go in and hold her own against them and become a really important big game player. In last year’s all-Ireland semi-final against Tipperary (1-3), she actually won the game for them in the end. She was exceptional.
“And then this year she got that all-important goal [against Tipperary in All-Ireland semi-final].”
The record currently reads McCartan 1-0 Mallon in All-Ireland finals as the Cork-Galway rivalry heads for another exciting chapter. Carr will be in Croke Park on Sunday, looking on proudly at her former teammates proving their worth among the best camogie players in the country.
Talents that were forged in Down are now deservedly being showcased on the biggest stage.
“Niamh is just a once-in-a-generation talent, she’s so accurate and she’s so brave.. Sorcha is a great target person there in the edge of the square for Cork. She’s so physically strong and she’s actually deceptively quick. So she’s a handful for any full-back.”
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