“People tend to be very negative. It’s hard if you don’t have much experience in it."

“You’re always going to get the type of keyboard warrior… Sometimes it’s hard to take, you know? Sometimes the pressure does get to you.” Camogie player Ashling Thompson has opened up about dealing with media scrutiny. Speaking on the latest episode of SportsJOE Live, the woman who captained Cork to All Ireland success in 2015 admitted that the attention players and managers get can be difficult to handle. Ashling has spoken out about her mental health struggles in the past. She told the Irish Independent that a car accident several years ago prompted a bout of depression. "I stopped talking to my friends. I would be cooped up in my room 24/7. I stopped eating; I lost so much weight. I should have been 10 stone, but I was seven-and-a-half stone. I was skin and bone. It all was so overwhelming" She said she's now in a better place mentally, for the most part. "I had a patch last year where I started to feel down in myself again, a small bit of depression was creeping back. It can still happen. But I get satisfaction from knowing I know how to cope with it." On SportsJOE Live, she went on to say that the comments others make about her and her fellow players are nothing more than “opinion”. “To us, no matter what is said in the media, we don’t even read it. I think that’s an important thing for players too – don’t read what’s in the media. “To me it’s an opinion. I have my opinion about things and people agree and they don’t agree and that’s fair enough like, my opinion is my opinion.” Watch the episode here. Catch SportsJOE Live this evening from 9.30pm on the SportsJOE Facebook page.