After Carrie Dolan’s free put Galway in front for the last time, the 2025 All-Ireland final turned into a mosh pit. For the next 84 seconds the game was off its chain. There were 17 tackles or body hits or fouls that went unpenalised. Eight players hit the ground, a couple from exhaustion. Nobody blinked or balked. The referee’s whistle went silent.“I’m not sure how many potential frees I could have counted in that last minute of play,” said Elaine Aylward in the RTÉ commentary, as the ball ducked under the ropes and over the sideline.From the bloodstream of this rivalry, it was a laboratory sample. Since before the turn of the decade, Cork and Galway have wired into each other. The two best teams in the championship were also designed for combat just when camogie had changed its mind about that. Opened it.“The physicality that both teams bring is just another level,” says Niamh Kilkenny, the former Galway captain. “They don’t hold back.”Their feelings for each other have been fired by closeness. Neither could see beyond the other. Seven of the last nine All-Ireland finals have been won by either Cork or Galway; five of the last seven National League finals have gone the same way. Kilkenny have dropped in and out, but nobody has gotten between them.“Both teams rise to each other,” says Imelda Hobbins, who captained Galway to beat Cork in the 1996 All-Ireland final and is an analyst on Galway Bay FM now.Galway’s Carrie Dolan celebrates her winning point in last year's All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship final against Cork at Croke Park. Photograph: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho