A total of 16 years after making her debut for Kerry, Emma Costello is still making a big impact for the county.<\/p>\n
Costello is in her third stint with the Kingdom, as she prepares for their semi-final against last season’s winners, Dublin, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Having missed the 2024 All-Ireland win, Costello is determined to get her hands on the Brendan Martin Cup.<\/p>\n
While it took some consideration to continue playing this season after returning in 2025, it is a decision Costello is delighted with.<\/p>\n
“I had played last year, but the Meath game didn’t go so well, so there was probably an itch to see if we could improve on that.<\/p>\n
“We had to make sure if logistically if that would work out too, so there was a lot of planning for a couple of months to see if we were able to do it.<\/p>\n
“I am so happy it worked out, and we were able to do it.<\/p>\n
“I think there is definitely a different feel to it, I suppose, knowing I am definitely getting closer this time to the end. You are just trying to keep fighting.<\/p>\n
“It is hard not to want to keep playing; it keeps pulling you back.”<\/p>\n
Kerry avenged their semi-final defeat over Meath with a big victory over them in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
In their first season as defending All-Ireland champions in over 30 years, Costello quickly went back from being a fan to a key player.<\/p>\n
Having won the PwC player of the month for June, Costello has shown she is still a key player for Kerry. Reflecting on the 2024 final as a fan, Costello wants to create her own memories on the pitch.<\/p>\n
“I thought I was finished, so I was just so proud of them that day and so happy we finally did it.<\/p>\n
“There is a lot of players that it took to get there. There is a lot of players who went through the Kerry team who didn’t get to an All-Ireland final.<\/p>\n
“I was just so proud of them, I didn’t know I would be back again to be honest.<\/p>\n
“It would mean the world, I have been playing for Kerry for a long time. To be able to show (her daughter) Molly that mam done it would be lovely.”<\/p>\n
Costello praised the competitive season, with not only Kerry and Dublin facing off in the semi-finals, but Galway and Armagh also going head to head for a spot in the All-Ireland finals.<\/p>\n
“It is so competitive, the championship is wide open, and that is the way you want it. You don’t want a team dominating. It’s great you can’t call it.<\/p>\n
“It is showing how much ladies football has come on. Our Munster championship this year was so competitive that we were pushed to the line all of the time.<\/p>\n
“It is good games, week in, week out. It is great to see,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A total of 16 years after making her debut for Kerry, Emma Costello is still making a big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-554871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554871","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=554871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}