{"id":163762,"date":"2025-11-28T06:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T06:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/163762\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T06:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T06:14:08","slug":"womens-gaelic-football-losing-top-talent-to-aussie-rules-says-all-ireland-winner-carla-rowe-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/163762\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Gaelic football losing top talent to Aussie Rules, says All-Ireland winner Carla Rowe \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dublin\u2019s All-Ireland winning captain Carla Rowe has expressed concern with the talent drain on women\u2019s Gaelic football<\/a> because of the increasing number of players attracted by offers to play Aussie Rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seven Irish players could be involved in Saturday\u2019s AFLW Grand Final between North Melbourne and Brisbane Lions, with Vikki Wall (Meath), Erika O\u2019Shea (Cork), Amy Gavin Mangan (Offaly) and Bl\u00e1ith\u00edn Bogue (Fermanagh) playing for North Melbourne and Jennifer Dunne (Dublin), Orla O\u2019Dwyer (Tipperary) and Neasa Dooley (Kildare) playing for Brisbane.<\/p>\n

There were a record 39 players from Ireland in the AFLW this season.<\/p>\n

And five were named on the 21-strong All-Australian AFLW team of the year earlier this week: Dunne, Bogue, Niamh McLaughlin (Donegal), \u00c1ine McDonagh (Galway) and Dayna Finn (Mayo). <\/p>\n

\u201cI understand why players are going over to Australia, absolutely, I can see why. But I am worried about the impact on ladies\u2019 Gaelic football as a whole, to be honest,\u201d says Rowe.<\/p>\n

Since the inception of the AFLW in 2017, it has been possible for most Irish players to juggle both Gaelic football and Aussie Rules as the respective season schedules allowed for such.<\/p>\n

However, this year the AFLW season was extended from 10 to 12 rounds \u2013 starting on August 14th rather than the end of August\/start of September. The 2024 season started on August 30th. The 2026 season will follow the same schedule as 2025, with a mid-August start.<\/p>\n

With the LGFA All-Ireland finals now taking place at the start of August, the earlier commencement date Down Under means players, depending on the success of their county team, would miss most if not all the AFLW preseason or even be forced to choose between the codes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose conversations are happening in the LGFA and I see them starting to happen as well in the GAA, which hopefully will bring it to the forefront even more that they\u2019re losing younger players to going over to Australia and is there anything we can do to try to help them stay here,\u201d adds Rowe.<\/p>\n

\"JenniferJennifer Dunne of Brisbane Lions during the 2025 W Awards in Melbourne on Monday. Photograph: Albert Perez\/AFL via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cLook, it\u2019s an amazing achievement for the girls. I see Jen Dunne is on it [All-Australian team]. It\u2019s fantastic for her to be in a final as well, you want the girls to go over and you wish them all the success they can have. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut still, the underlying thing for me is the worry, not just for Dublin, but across the country, about the top players in the counties are being brought over to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dublin turn up the heat on Meath and emerge as deserving championsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Rowe, who teaches in Balbriggan Community College, turned down an opportunity to try her hand at Aussie Rules in 2018. She has since become one of the most recognisable and successful players in Women\u2019s Gaelic Football.<\/p>\n

And although the 30-year-old hasn\u2019t fully committed to the Dublin cause for 2026, the Clann Mhuire player is edging towards another season in blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe club season only finished two weeks ago. I\u2019m taking a bit of time just to have a bit of reflection on the year and see where next year is looking. But for now, it\u2019s definitely not a no. It\u2019s not 100 per cent yes, but it\u2019s closer to yes than it is no.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dublin\u2019s All-Ireland winning captain Carla Rowe has expressed concern with the talent drain on women\u2019s Gaelic football because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91291,91289,61,60,91290,43,59268],"class_list":["post-163762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aflw","tag-aussie-rules","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ladies-gaelic-football-association-lgfa","tag-news","tag-women-in-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}