Parallel lives, lived along different lines. Rory Jacob has just recently walked away from it, melting back into civilian life after 14 seasons playing inter- county with Wexford. His sister Ursula is still there, tilting away, the first down payments on her 16th season with the county camogie team already filed.
They are two of four Jacob siblings to have played for Wexford since the late 1990s. Their father is Mick Jacob, three-time All-Star centre back in the 1970s. Brother Michael and sister Helena have had their days as well in the purple and gold. For a few years, all four were engaged in active service at the same time.
“It was just a way of life,” says Rory. “You come home in the evening, you pick up the gear bag and you go out and you go to training. You wouldn’t see each other maybe only for a quick second before you’d go away out the door.
“You might see each other again before you go to bed and you might have a quick bit of a give out about how things went at training, but that would be the extent of it. The girls were notorious for taking our gear. There’s a lot of missing jerseys gone over the years.”
In fairness, it would have been strange if that hadn’t been the case. Whereas an intercounty hurler can barely find hot press space for training tops and tracky bottoms, a camogie player has to be a lot more penny-wise. Things aren’t as bad as they once were, but there’s still a fair way to go.
“I never really had a jealousy of what the lads had because I’m pretty easygoing with stuff like that,” says Ursula. “As long as there’s a decent pitch and you can get a shower afterwards – I don’t mind if we’re not getting a freshly home-cooked meal afterwards. As long as we get a sandwich or something, I’d be happy enough. I’m not too demanding.
Positive experiences
“Being fair to the camogie board, we generally had good, positive experiences. Maybe when I was starting out things were a bit unprogressive. But the first year I really noticed that there was a level of professionalism and equality between the squads was in 2007, when we won our first All-Ireland. We were looking for better facilities, we were looking for food after training, nice gear – all the stuff that the lads would get. And definitely in the last seven or eight years, things have come on.”
You can’t miss what you never had, and all that. But looking in from the outside, it strikes her brother that however sanguine camogie players are about it, they’re still being short-changed.
“I wouldn’t say we were ever treated like kings,” says Rory, “but we were never short of anything we needed. If we wanted a bit of gear, we’d get a bit of gear. If we wanted boots, we’d get boots. We were fed after training, we were provided with gyms for training in, and all that. Everything was there to help us.
“Whereas with the girls, they were on their own with things like that. When it came to gear, they never got too much of it. I’d have box full of stuff at home going back 10, 15 years, whereas if Ursula got something, she’d have to hang on to it for a good while. And expenses? I don’t think the girls ever got any expenses. That type of thing has to be improved for them.
“The least they deserve is expenses to cover getting to and from training or whatever. They’re making money for the Camogie Association and the GAA along the way. Expenses would only be a small thing, but it would help them. Girls are travelling a long way for training and games and that will only last so long if it’s costing them money.”
Ursula started playing for the county when she was 15, so for the first few years, she was being ferried to and from training. Eventually, though, she made her own way, and through all her years living, studying and working in Waterford, making her own way mostly meant paying her own way. Hurlers get mileage, camogie players don’t. Again though, she sees it as a fact of life more than anything.
“Up until recently, I would have been commuting from Waterford to Wexford two or three times a week for training and for games. And look, the county board would do their best to cover some of the cost of that. But I’m understanding too – they’re restricted with their funding.
Personal gain
“I’d rather that the team gets the benefit of whatever bit of money is going rather than er the general expenses of the team be helped out than mine. It’s my choice to play and I’m not in the game to see what freebies I can get out of it.
“That’s the sacrifice and the commitment that you make to it. You recognise that, look, sometimes it does get hard and sometimes you do get to the end of the month and your bank balance isn’t looking great. But you reap rewards too – if you’re successful, if you win an All-Ireland, it makes it all worthwhile.”
On that score, there’s no contest. Ursula has won four All-Irelands and has four All-Stars to find room for. Rory retired with a Leinster medal and the thin gruel of a Division Two title to show for his labours.
“From a success point of view, Ursula has won four All-Irelands. You wouldn’t be jealous of that exactly, but it would have been something I’d have set out on my career hoping to come close to. I played in big games, but I never got to play in an All-Ireland final. That would have been something that I’d have been envious of, I suppose – that she was on a team that was capable of reaching those heights.”
Flipside
Some days similar, some days not. In camogie, you spend a lot more time with your club, even at the height of the inter-county championship. Rory often watched Ursula come home from a championship game with Wexford on a Sunday and shook his head in disbelief as she went out the door to training with Oulart-The-Ballagh on a Monday.
On the flipside, Ursula looks at the way hurling championship is structured for men and wonders how any team is supposed to grow or develop when it all comes tumbling down so quickly once the summer starts. Camogie has a round-robin phase before it gets to pure knockout.
“There would have been hard years where Kilkenny might have been beating them at times and the criticism they were receiving was harsh,” she says.
“They still kept going and still kept fighting and that’s something that I would admire in the lads, especially Rory, because he was playing through some of the worst years. He was still professional about everything he did and I would have taken that into my own game.”
