Saturday's AFLW All-Stars game at North Sydney Oval offers a unique opportunity to celebrate how Irish players have shaped Australian rules football. Forty-six Irish players are on current AFLW lists, and they are not benchwarmers: eight have won premierships, nine have earned All-Australian blazers, and Geelong's Aishling Moloney was the joint leading goalkicker in 2024.
Representative match highlights Irish influence
The sold-out game pits Ireland against Australia in an Australian rules match, serving as a taster before the AFLW season begins. It acknowledges the transferrable traits of Gaelic football—speed, agility, and ground coverage—that Irish players bring to the women's game.
Cora Staunton, the first Irish player to join the AFLW in 2017, chairs the selectors for Ireland in this match. She flew to Australia after her county Mayo won the All-Ireland men's football title for the first time in 75 years. Staunton said, "I just fell in love with the game. I was still learning on the go. Even my kicking style, I refined it in the [first] off-season." She played 50 games for GWS Giants over six seasons, kicking 55 goals.
Lifestyle and professionalism attract Irish players
Staunton attributes the appeal of AFLW to lifestyle and professionalism. "If you look at Irish people in general that have left university or college, they're all 21, 22. There's a big pull to the culture and environment and the lifestyle that you have in terms of weather," she said. "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, the youngest Irish player to arrive in 2022 at age 20 from County Cork, has since won back-to-back premierships with North Melbourne. She said, "I saw them be so successful … get paid to do what you love and exercise and have such an amazing lifestyle. 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."
Game builds connection for Irish diaspora
The match provides a unique connection point for the Irish diaspora, with over 22,000 Ireland-born people in Greater Sydney and 401,000 with Irish ancestry. Some fans were disappointed the sold-out match was not moved to a larger venue like the SCG; the AFL offered a ticketing waitlist and advertised pubs for viewing. Additional tickets released this week were quickly snapped up, highlighting demand.
The game brings together top players from both sides, including Ebony Marinoff, Jasmine Garner, Courtney Hodder, Erone Fitzpatrick, Vikki Wall, and Aine McDonagh, at a capacity venue, marking a key moment in the league's history.
