Kilkenny camogie captain Shelly Farrell says the Cats have left 'no stone unturned' as they prepare for an All-Ireland final rematch with Cork.
Ann Downey's charges surrendered the O'Duffy Cup to their Munster rivals in last year's decider after a gripping contest which was settled by a last-gasp point from Cork substitute Julia White.
Farrell has watched that painful defeat just once in the last year and she got back into work the Wednesday after the final where she sought comfort in life outside of sport.
That one viewing of the game took place earlier this year when Farrell sat down with her teammates in Nowlan Park to go through the footage and assess where things went wrong.
"We watched the match and forgot about it after that," Farrell said at the 2018 Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Camogie Championship Finals Launch.
"It's tough because it's so long and you think the year is never going to come. Once championship starts it flies then, playing matches every two weeks. But it's very hard to get the mind back into at the start going back training.
"But then you just think about the loss and you never want to feel like that again. You just want to push on and thank God we've experienced success in 2016 so we know what it feels like. And then we felt so bad last year, we never want to feel like that."
Kilkenny's 2016 All-Ireland success generated considerable hype as Downey's side ended a 22-year wait for a senior All-Ireland camogie crown.
In those concluding moments of last year's final, Farrell was certain that a 0-9 0-9 draw would be the outcome at the end of normal time before White managed to fend off a swarm of Kilkenny defenders and angle her shot over the bar just a few minutes after making her introduction.
Kilkenny come into this final having defeated Cork in the National League Division 1 Final in April before topping Group 1 in the championship, and beating Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final.
After losing their grip of the title with the last puck of the game last September, Farrell insists that they have harnessed that hurt effectively to bring an even bigger challenge to Croke Park for this year's All-Ireland final on Sunday.
"It was good to get a tough group, we were pushed to the collar and it just shows the strength we have in the panel and the spirit between the girls.
"It was very good I think, even the semi-final against Galway really pushed us. They were so physical, it took us 10 or 20 minutes to get into the match and it was like being hit by a bus. But it was very good to get the tough matches. You learn a lot more from tough matches."
"The year we won, we were very hungry to win it and all the hype of 22 years since we won it. Ann Downey taking over in 2016 really drove us on. I don't know did we maybe take it for granted maybe a bit in 2017.
"But we definitely have no stone unturned this year. We've trained very hard. We just have to go out and do it in the match. We can't be training hard and not bringing it to the big stage so we really need to push on Sunday week."
Join us on Sunday for our live All-Ireland camogie finals blog on the RTÉ News Now app and on RTÉ.ie. There's live coverage of the senior and intermediate finals on RTÉ2 Television from 1.30 with live coverage of the junior final exclusively live on the RTÉ Player from 12.0. Updates and commentary on the games is available on RTÉ Radio 1 Sunday Sport.
