We’ve a notion that Katie McCabe would be the first to question her selection as our sportswoman of the month for July. She is, after all, not one for moral victories and the like, she’s in the results business, so no matter how historic Ireland’s appearance at the World Cup was, she might well balk at being hailed for captaining the side to one draw and two defeats.
But for her own performances in Australia, combined with her form for Arsenal last season, she’s more than deserving of a place on this year’s roll of honour.
Even before the World Cup, she was in the judges’ sights after yet another excellent campaign for her club, during which champions Chelsea made what was described as a “substantial” bid to buy her. Arsenal said, “You’re grand, thanks”.
A measure of her form was her inclusion in the Champions League team of the season, the only player who didn’t reach the final to make the 11 – winners Barcelona had six and runners-up Wolfsburg had four players in the team.
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For good measure, McCabe also picked up the WSL goal of the season award for her zinger against Manchester City in April.
And whether she meant to score with that “Olimpico” against Canada or not, who cares – she has the distinction of being the first Republic of Ireland player to help herself to a goal in the Women’s World Cup and, of course, the first to captain her country in the tournament.
More than all that, though, it was the manner in which McCabe drove Ireland on in three difficult games that stood out, all the time combining her defensive duties with raiding up that left wing. Not that she confined herself to that position, against Canada in particular she popped up everywhere.
With ceaseless energy, she set the tone for the team and was at the centre of most of their best work, barking orders and urging them on in all three games.
Not everyone will have approved of her spiky exchange with Vera Pauw during the final game against Nigeria, nor emoji-gate, but as our columnist Karen Duggan put it, she’s “an emotional character . . . she wears her heart on her sleeve, and we don’t want to take that away from her because that’s part of what makes her the player, and leader, she is”. Although Karen did concede that maybe someone should remove her Twitter app from her phone.
So, she’s fiery all right, hot-headed at times, but again, those characteristics contribute to making her one of the best players the Republic of Ireland have ever had.
Six years after her first sportswoman of the month award, McCabe is, then, our winner again. Hopefully she’ll respond with a smiley emoji. Or a thumbs up.
Previous Monthly Winners (the awards run from December 2022 to November 2023, inclusive):
December: Eilish and Roisin Flanagan (athletics). The combined efforts of the Tyrone twins, who finished in 11th and 12th place, helped Ireland to a bronze medal at the European Cross Country Championships in Italy, despite being without Fionnuala McCormack and Ciara Mageean.
January: Rhasidat Adeleke (athletics). Where do you start? The University of Texas runner is having a phenomenal start to the year, setting a string of Irish records, among them her smashing of her own 400 metres record when she became the first Irish woman to break 50 seconds.
February: Orla Prendergast (cricket). The 20-year-old was named in the T20 World Cup team of the tournament after impressing with both bat and ball for Ireland. And she started a spell with English side Western Storm in style in April, scoring 115 on her debut.
March: Rachael Blackmore (horse racing). She’s produced her fair share of special days at Cheltenham over the last few years, but Blackmore riding Honeysuckle to victory at this year’s festival, in the mare’s final race, will live long in the memory.
April: Thammy Nguyen (weightlifting). Nguyen made history in Armenia by becoming the first Irish competitor to win a senior medal in the European Weightlifting Championships. She’s now targeting a place in next year’s Olympic Games.
May: Lucy Mulhall (rugby). In Toulouse in May, in the final event of the seven-tournament World Series, the Wicklow woman captained the Irish Sevens team to qualification for the Olympic Games by taking fifth place in the overall standings. Mulhall won her 50th cap in the tournament and finished as Ireland’s highest points scorer in the series.
June: Leona Maguire (golf). A two-shot victory at the Meijer Classic in Michigan gave Maguire the second LPGA title of her career, helping her break in to the world’s top 10 for the first time, making her the first Irish woman to achieve the feat.
