Gaelic football is like lots of different sports rolled into one

I’m 31 now and only started playing Gaelic football in 2010 when the SA Gaels were first formed. I took the sport up as an off-season way to keep fit when I was not playing Australian rules football.

Right now we are trying to get our team more organised [the club’s teams train on pitches in Pretoria and Johannesburg, two cities that are 67 kilometres apart] so that we can play all year round, and if we do it will become my full-time sport, I hope.

I play in the half-forward line on the right and our club teams are made up of Irish, South African and Zimbabweans. So it is a good mix.

The SA Gaels has about 300 people playing at junior and senior levels. There are a lot of Irish people involved, and this is very positive as the sport has made it easier to break down the barriers that exist between rich and poor in South Africa.

The reason I like the sport so much is it is so exciting and fast. There is no time to celebrate a score because the ball is already moving up the pitch and you have to get ready for the next play. It’s also physical in way that is similar to basketball. It’s like playing a lot of different sports rolled into one.

I live in Tembisa [a large township on the East Rand in Gauteng province] and moved here to be close to the team. I have grown up playing sport and I take it very seriously as you get to learn a lot about how to approach life.

Leadership qualities

Gaelic football gives you leadership qualities that you can take off the park and into life, such as commitment and focus. This is important in my community; so many people struggle to live a positive life because of poverty and crime. I feel like I am a positive role model and I like taking my experiences and passing them on to the generations coming up behind me.

We have been training for a year for this competition in Abu Dhabi and I would say we are well prepared. It is our first big tournament since we played in the Gulf Gaelic games last year where we played teams from the Middle East and Asia.

We hope to do well, but we do not know a lot of the teams we are competing against, so it is hard to know.