Niamh Rockett is the July winner of the WLR FM/Granville Hotel Monthly GAA Award.
The St. Annes attacker found the net twice in the All-Ireland quarter-final victory over Limerick at Semple Stadium as Waterford made the last four for the first time since 1959.
This is Niamh’s second monthly award.
She has been part of the Waterford team since 2009; having won All-Ireland medals at both the junior and intermediate grades.
The former captain picked up her first All-Star in 2020 and was delighted to get the phone call telling her she had picked up her second Granville award.
“I was a bit surprised at myself, but it’s always really nice. The last time I was here was 2019 for the overall award and we had great celebrations. It’s always a great honour and good recognition.”
Waterford camogie have had one of their best years in recent memory. The All-Ireland semi-final with Cork – which ultimately proved to be too high a hurdle – showed that the Déise are ready to eat at the top table. On their way to Croke Park Waterford and Rockett beat Tipperary at the senior level for the first time, before seeing their way past Clare in Ennis.
“I think the highlight was getting to Croke Park for the semi-final as well as beating Tipperary on that rainy day in Thurles. That was like a monkey on our back really after all the years that we had gone out and played them.”
It wasn’t plain sailing this season however. An opening day loss to Dublin looked ominous, but a rallying performance against Wexford in Walsh Park proved pivotal.
“We felt we wanted to do right by ourselves and for the supporters. We felt that we left ourselves down, but we were so glad the way we turned around the year. We started to really enjoy it and played for each other. That lead us on to an All-Ireland-Semi final in Croke Park. While we ran out of steam at the end, we learned loads and we have the progression of getting over the big obstacles of beating Tipperary and making it to the semi-final”.
