The first time Ailish Considine and Sinead Goldrick ever bumped into each was back in 2016 when Clare and Dublin used the same hotel for their post-All Ireland final functions.
They were feeling equally deflated, both having lost their respective games that day by a point, Considine's Clare beaten in the intermediate final by Kildare, Goldrick's Dublin losing to Cork for the third year running.
One of them is going to be left deflated all over again after the pair square up in Saturday's AFLW Grand Final at the Adelaide Oval, Considine lining out for the Adelaide Crows, Goldrick for Melbourne.
While the experience will be a brand new one for the Dubliner, Melbourne having reached their first ever Grand Final, for Considine it will, remarkably, be her third final in four years.
She won her first back in 2019, in front of a crowd of 55,000, becoming the first Irish woman to achieve the feat, but she was on the losing side last year when Brisbane Lions got the better of Adelaide.
Still, that loss was one of the very setbacks the former the Clare footballer and camogie player has experienced since she signed for Adelaide in 2018. “I felt then if I could even play in one game I’d go home happy, that was as much as I hoped for,” she says, “so it’s been a dream.”
But it’s only been this season that the 29-year-old feels “it’s all really clicked together”, before then there was a lot of learning to do. “Skills-wise, I picked it up pretty quickly, but the challenge after that was trying to work out the game-play, the attacking and defensive structures, the positionings, it’s really only this year that I don’t have to think about it any more - which is a relief, because I wondered if that day would ever come.”
“But it just comes with the more games you play. When I think about it, I probably played 100s of Gaelic football games, whereas I only played my 25th of AFLW last weekend. You come from a high level playing Gaelic for your county back home, and then you’re right back down to the bottom, having to learn from scratch, but being in the spotlight, playing at the elite level here while doing it.”
“There’s a bit of the impostor syndrome about it at first, you doubt yourself a lot because you know you haven’t grown up with this sport like the girls around you. The first couple of seasons I probably wouldn’t have said too much to anyone on the field because I would have doubted myself, but with more experience I’m backing myself a little bit more, trusting that I know the game at this stage.”
While 14 Irish players have played in this year’s campaign, Considine expects those numbers to increase, especially with the league expanding by four clubs.
"That brings great opportunities for Irish girls because that influx of players is needed. There's so much raw talent back home ready to go. They're still building in Australia, they have their academies and the girls are really starting to come through, but you also need that ready-made talent in each squad."
No skill
She politely agrees to differ with Meath manager Eamonn Murray's comments this week when he questioned why Vikki Wall, as appears likely, would want to join an Australian club later in the year. "I don't know why you'd want to play that sport because it's dreadful stuff to watch," he said. "There's no skill at all."
“In my opinion it’s pretty unfair to make that call on anyone who wants to come out here because it’s an opportunity to play professional sport, an opportunity you don’t have as Gaelic footballers,” says Considine. “Any woman who had the chance to play and get paid for it, you’d grab it with both hands if you love sport and if that’s what you want to do.”
“And there is quite a lot of skill involved,” she laughs. “It’s a difficult game to play, it’s very tactical, it’s taken me four years to get a real grasp of it. So it’s probably an unjust comment, they’re incredible athletes in this game, they put their bodies on the line, the skill level is very high. It’s so structured, there are so many systems, different styles of play; you don’t see it from the outside.”
Goldrick, she says, has taken to the game “like a duck to water”. “She’s been superb at half-back for Melbourne,” she says of the five-time All Ireland winner. “Her courage going for the ball, the pressure that she puts on forwards, it’s just incredible. I played against her a couple of times here and she’s slotted right in, she’s tenacious, her style of play just totally suits the game. She’s been brilliant.”
Goldrick's Dublin and Melbourne team-mate Lauren Magee has had a tougher experience this year, struggling for game-time, so might not make the squad for the final. If she does, though, she'll be hellbent on putting those frustrations behind her.
Considine's family won't make it to the final this time around, as they did before, instead they'll be watching a livestream of the game in the early hours of Saturday morning (noon Adelaide time). "Well, they say they'll wake up for it, they're ready to go," she laughs, although her sister Eimear might have to sleep through it seeing as she has the small matter of a Six Nations game against Italy on Sunday.
“It should be a real battle, Melbourne are a superb team. They finished level of points with us (in the league phase), we both only lost one game, so there’s nothing between us. I can’t wait for it. And I honestly can’t believe I’m in another final. Ah, you just have to take a step back and realise how fortunate you’ve been.”
* TG4 will have deferred coverage of the game at 11.0 am on Saturday morning
