Cork camogie star Julia White rates all of her All-Ireland titles as special, but she says the latest has extra significance, given they proved the doubters wrong to claim it.
On Sunday, White helped Cork to retain the Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Championship with a fully-deserved win over Galway in the final.
Yet earlier in the year, Cork's chances of even reaching the decider did not look promising as they tried to cope with a succession of defections.
For a variety of reasons, the squad that ended the championship was missing 11 of the players who were involved in last term's final.
But Cork upsets the odds and underlined the impressive pool of talent in the county as they went on to lift the biggest prize in the game, much to the delight of White, who now has four All-Ireland medals in her collection.
She said: "For me it is hard to say that one All-Ireland win is better than another because all of them are special.
"However, this year's one is that bit extra special as not long ago we had been written off by many people involved in the game.
"We had lost a lot of players from last year and we were struggling a bit in games.
"But we turned the corner and managed to win the All-Ireland again. Everyone who was part of the Cork set-up this year put in a massive effort and it paid off."
White traces the improvement in Cork's fortunes this season to a squad meeting which was held after they were beaten by Wexford in the group phase of the championship in July.
That defeat was Cork’s second in four games, although they got back on track in their next outing which was the quarter-final against Tipperary.
The get-together helped to iron out some problems and it proved to be a turning point.
White recalled: "Going into the Wexford game we probably felt we were doing well enough, but our performance that day showed that, in fact, we were not.
"We decided to gather as a group to discuss what was going wrong and how we might fix it. One of the improvements made was the intensity of training which was stepped up, and I think that stood to us.
"While we actually started slowly against Tipp, we eventually found our feet to win well and carried that through to the semi-final with Kilkenny and on into the final also."
White counts herself fortunate to have added to her haul of All-Irelands after deciding to opt out of the squad following the National League so as to spend time abroad.
The forward missed the first two games in the championship and admits leaving the squad then could have made it difficult for her to be brought back into the fold later.
"I had been planning from January to take time out as I had not had a break during the winter due to camogie and ladies football commitments with University of Limerick," she added.
"Before I went, Cork manager Paudie Murray said he would look at recalling me when I returned and that was all I could ask for at that stage. Thankfully, he and the squad were happy for me to re-join when I got back and I quickly resumed training.
"I had done some fitness work when I was away so it did not take me too long to catch up.
"Admittedly, I took a chance to opt out during the season and I was lucky it worked out for me because other sides might not have welcomed a player back at that stage."
It remains to be seen who will be on board with Cork next season when they will be striving to make it a three-in-a-row of All-Irelands. The Rebel County have not managed to do that since the 1970s and White knows it will be a big ask.
White declared: "As the holders we will be up there for all of the other teams to try and knock down but we got a taste of that this year.
"In fact the whole squad – especially the younger players who had little or no experience of playing at this level before this season – should be stronger for next year, if there are not too many changes.
"Of course it would be special to win a third All-Ireland in as many years but for now we will just savour this one."
