Tipperary captain Karen Kennedy is optimistic that this year's Very Camogie League title breakthrough is just the beginning of a successful phase for the county.
On 14 April, Tipp beat Galway in the league decider to bridge a 20-year gap since their last pieces of national silverware and served notice that they can more consistently challenge the established top three, which includes the aforementioned Galwegians as well as Cork and Kilkenny.
The challenge now is to make sure that ambition rings true, according to Kennedy, who feels the pieces are falling into place in the long-term.
"It's not something we're taking for granted. We obviously hadn't won one in 20 years so to get over the line there was huge," she said as she received her award for April's GAA/GPA Player of the Month in camogie.
"It's great for the sport in Tipp, it brings a lot of attraction and hopefully helps grow the sport in Tipp and we have a great underage set-up coming through as well.
"Our minors won the All-Ireland there a few weeks ago as well so hopefully this can push us on in Tipp camogie and definitely with that group coming through as well, I think the future is probably bright."
Kennedy had the pleasure of climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand and lifting the league trophy and that was after playing a crucial role in scoring 1-03 of the Tipp total on the day.
"So it was huge but to be honest, I wouldn't have been there without the rest of the team. I didn't play a huge part in the league. I suffered with a few injuries at the start of the league, so it really was the girls that we're driving everything throughout the whole league, so a huge honour to the group for what we achieved and it definitely is special for us."
Just like the step by step nature of climbing the Hogan, Tipp's progression under manager Denis Kelly has been one of incremental progression with last year one for the panel to get used to his methods and vice versa according to Kennedy.
And although 2023 ultimately ended in the heartbreak of an All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Waterford, the signs were there last year that the Premier County were on the up.
A quietly positive league, winning the Munster title and then getting close to an All-Ireland final is evidence enough of that.
"Something we took from last year is that we did do a lot of things right and we did get to stages that we were aiming to, so obviously things were right and it was just small tweaks we needed to look at this year," said Kennedy.
"There wasn't a big master change in the game plan or anything like that. I suppose the basis is there and we just needed to learn from a few things last year and tweak small bits that we can improve on this year to hopefully get over that line."
As Waterford showed in getting to a first All-Ireland final since 1945 last year and Tipp's own league breakthrough, there appears to be scope for camogie's top three to be expanded to encompass one or two more teams on the rise.
But Kennedy knows Galway, Kilkenny and Cork aren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future.
"It's no secret to anyone that they're probably three of the top teams in Ireland," she said.
"I suppose ourselves and Waterford have been pushing up there the last few years. It's great for the sport that there's more teams competing. It makes the championship and matches even better. Hopefully we'll start to get recognised among the best now and we can stand up with that in championship."
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