The match-winning super-sub from the last Cork-Galway league decider spends most of her time in Glasgow these days.
Saoirse Noonan will not be on hand to rescue Cork this time around, though their revival in form in the spring has been one of the more notable storylines in the league, alongside the embrace of the FRC's rules changes which have received rapturous acclaim from the players.
Division 1 of the 2026 Lidl Ladies Football League presents us with the novel spectacle of the two promoted teams contesting the final.
Cork and Galway met in a league final last year - albeit the Division 2 one. It was the westerners who won on that occasion, winning 2-08 to 1-05.
One caveat here is that both Galway and Cork had been Division 1 regulars until their abrupt relegation in 2024, which was something of a bolt from the blue.
Galway had contested the aforementioned league final in '23, losing to Kerry, while Cork last reached the decider in 2021, falling short against Dublin.
Indeed, the pair were due to meet themselves - for the second year running - in the 2020 league decider, which was postponed and eventually cancelled altogether due to the Covid pandemic.
Still, it's a rarity to see two promoted teams vying for the Division 1 crown.
"It's great to be back in another league final," says Cork captain Emma Cleary.
"After stepping up to Division 1 this year, the same as Galway, which is kind of funny, the two teams that were promoted last year.
"We know them so well. We've drawn them a good bit in the All-Ireland group stages in the last few years as well. They'll be a difficult task."
Cork's form, in particular, in the league may have caught observers by surprise. They had a poor-ish 2025 season, winning just two of their six championship games overall and losing heavily to Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
However, Cleary insists that the league display didn't come as any shock to themselves.
"I'm not sure are we that surprised. We put in a lot of hard work when we came back. We would have been very disappointed with how last year panned out.
"There was probably a narrative, maybe, that we were one of the favourites to go down.
"But we were only one year there in Division 2. A lot of the girls on the panel would have had Division 1 experience.
"When you're up in Division 1, your first aim is to stay up there. We got that draw the first day against Kildare and we really built from there.
"It's testament to the work we put in early on in the year."
The county - which won 11 All-Ireland titles in 12 years between 2005 and 2016 - has undergone a transition in recent years, with only three survivors from the starting XV in the 2019 league decider.
"There's no denying that we've looked up to that great Cork team for so many years," says Cleary. "But we can't keep looking back at them, we've to bring our own style of play with our own players.
"We've had a lot of minor success in the last few years. I know that doesn't always translate into senior success but it can only be a positive. I think it's just filtering through those players now and getting them up to senior level.
"There's been a lot of change over the last few years. It's been about building confidence with the new players coming in and I think we've gone a good job with that so far this year."
While they came out on top in the Division 2 showdown last year, Galway are seeking their first overall league crown this year, having had a lamentable record in finals down the decades.
They lost the inaugural league decider to Tipperary in 1979 and have lost six more since then, the most recent against Kerry in 2023.
"It'd be huge for Galway, I suppose we've never won it before, so that's huge motivation for us," captain Kate Geraghty said this week.
Geraghty agrees with the contention that relegation to the second tier may have been a positive for the team in the medium term, allowing them to build confidence and generate momentum.
"When you have that kind of momentum going behind you, it's a lot easier to keep pushing forward," says Geraghty.
"I think everyone's feeling confident. When you get a couple of wins under your belt, it'll just drive your team forward.
"We're used to playing Cork. We've played each other all throughout the years, even at underage. It seems to be always Cork that we're facing!"
