AFLW All-Stars game offers a chance to celebrate how Irish players have shaped the game

The AFL is littered with moments of Irish influence. The late Jim Stynes dominating in the air, dragging an undermanned Melbourne to an elimination final win over Collingwood in 1989. Tadhg Kennelly’s jubilant jig after receiving his premiership medal with the Swans in 2005. International rules Gaelic football matches watched back in Australia at unforgiving hours.

It is the AFLW though that is taking the relationship to a whole new level. Forty-six Irish players are on current AFLW lists, and they’re no benchwarmers. Eight players have won premierships, while nine have earned All-Australian blazers in the AFLW’s 10 seasons. Geelong key forward Aishling Moloney from County Tipperary was the joint leading goalkicker of the competition in 2024, while Niamh McLaughlin became the first Irish AFL/AFLW captain when she was selected to co-lead the Suns last year.

On Saturday, a representative match pits Ireland against Australia in an Australian rules game at North Sydney Oval. It’s a taster before the AFLW season begins, an acknowledgement of how Irish players have shaped women’s footy. Gaelic football requires speed and agility, with an ability to cover the ground well – transferrable traits often seen in Irish AFLW players.

County Mayo’s Cora Staunton was the first to move across the world for half the year to play the Australian game, joining GWS Giants at the end of 2017 and making her debut at 36. Now back in Ireland, she regularly fields calls not only from parents and girls interested in playing, but increasingly from AFLW clubs visiting to scout players. It makes her a fitting choice as the chair of selectors for Ireland in this match, flying to Australia after her county’s first All-Ireland men’s football title in 75 years on Sunday.

The connection was made in Shanghai of all places, where she met Irishman Nick Walsh who worked with the Giants men’s team. Walsh told Staunton about the women’s league starting the following year, and followed up when AFLW coach Alan McConnell floated the idea of her coming out to Australia for a trial.

Once drafted, Staunton’s side Carnacon won their final on a Sunday in early December, and she flew out on the Tuesday for eight weeks of pre-season. She recalls training in 40C weather in western Sydney and harbouring some initial wariness over whether she could pick up the sport.

“I just fell in love with the game,” she says. “I was still learning on the go. Even my kicking style, I refined it in the [first] off-season.” Staunton went on to play 50 games for the Giants over six seasons, kicking 55 goals.

She puts the appeal of footy for Irish players down to two main factors – lifestyle and professionalism. 2021 Census data shows over 22,000 people living in Greater Sydney who were born in Ireland, with 401,000 with Irish ancestry, making players far from alone in the trend of making the move.

“If you look at Irish people in general that have left university or college, they’re all 21, 22,” she says. “There’s a big pull to the culture and environment and the lifestyle that you have in terms of weather.

“If you’re an Irish female, the chances of playing professional sport here are limited to a couple of sports. The majority of us obviously play Gaelic football, which is an amateur sport. We still have to work Monday to Friday… but you train at a professional level.”

Erika O’Shea was one of those young amateur players who saw her chance. Selected for Ireland this weekend, she was the youngest player to make the trip, arriving in 2022 from County Cork before she turned 20. O’Shea – a pacy, strong fan favourite playing a pivotal role off half-back – has since won back-to-back premierships with North Melbourne. The Kangaroos will have eight players take the field on Saturday across the two sides.

O’Shea agrees with Staunton’s assessment, remembering role models in Lions midfielder Orla O’Dwyer, who will captain Ireland, and Crows sisters Grace and Niamh Kelly. All were big names in Ireland before crossing over.

“I saw them be so successful … get paid to do what you love and exercise and have such an amazing lifestyle,” O’Shea says. “I think at the time I was oblivious to how far away Australia really was. Obviously I chased my dreams. But reality did hit when I got off the plane and I realised I was so far away from all my friends and family.”

O’Shea has started spending her off-season in Melbourne, rather than returning home for six months. She says it’s consolidated her friendships, to the point where she has 20 friends heading to Sydney in support this weekend.

The game provides a unique connection point, building an identity around a competition entering its 11th season while the AFL renews State of Origin matches for the men. It marks a distinct opportunity to create an association of home for the Irish diaspora, a corner of an already non-traditional AFL state’s market.

Some fans have been disappointed by the decision not to move the sold-out match to a larger venue like the SCG; the AFL has instead chosen to offer a ticketing waitlist for fans who missed out and advertise pubs in Sydney and Melbourne where the game can be watched. An unknown number of additional tickets released this week were quickly snapped up, highlighting the demand and interest.

Nevertheless, bringing together some of the best players from either side of the world – from Ebony Marinoff, Jasmine Garner and Courtney Hodder to Erone Fitzpatrick, Vikki Wall and Aine McDonagh – at a capacity venue shapes as a key moment in the league’s history.

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