Leaving a high-flying Meath team would likely be too much of a wrench for All-Ireland winning captain Shauna Ennis if the AFLW came calling.
Royals boss Éamonn Murray revealed earlier this week that Vikki Wall, one of the stars of last year’s Brendan Martin Cup success, is to head down under later this year and he added: “I don’t know how many more we’ll lose.”
Meath’s rapid progress to the summit of ladies football is bound to attract further interest from Australian clubs in the coming months and Ennis admits that it’s something she’s considered.
She said: “Look, I would definitely have thought about it a little bit but to be honest I think if I was going to go out to Australia I’d like to go out and just enjoy myself. I don’t know if I’d like to be training professionally.
“But look, it’s something I’m still open to and I definitely probably will think about it now in the next year or so but, at the same time, why would I want to leave Meath when we’re going so well?”
On the prospect of Wall departing, she added: “Yeah, there is a lot of talk of Vikki going and that’s her decision at the end of the day and we’ll obviously respect her decision.
“Vikki’s only young so if she wants to go and see a bit more of the world that’s fine by us.”
However, the landscape is shifting with regard to Irish players trying their hand at Australian rules as, while the current AFLW season concludes this weekend, the next one is set to commence in August.
With clubs likely to commence pre-season training in June and the All-Ireland ladies football final scheduled for July 31 this year, the practice of Irish players lining out in the AFLW while the National League is in progress here before returning for the Championship with their counties is unlikely to be an option going forward.
Ennis continued: “The season out there in Australia is getting longer because there’s more teams being added so I don’t think players are going to have the opportunity to play both.
“So players are going to have to make a decision, whether they’re going to go out and play AFL or they’re going to stay here and play county so I think that decision or that option is going to be taken away from you in some ways. It’s either one or the other.
“I’m sure we will have girls that will go out in the next couple of years but if they do I suppose they probably won’t be playing county that year, which is obviously a pity.
“It’s definitely helped us during the League. We have our full panel at our disposal so it’s definitely helpful for building on to the Championship.”
Meath have built steadily on their All-Ireland win by reaching Sunday’s League final against Donegal, with both counties bidding for their first title.
“I think the match on Sunday is going to be a really, really tough match,” Ennis said. “Donegal are pretty much a seasoned Division One team.
“This is our first year in Division One regardless of our win last year in the Championship - it’s our first year in Division One and they’ve beaten Dublin in the semi-final, it’s going to be a really, really tough, physical match.
“I think what we go out to do every day we play, we go out to have a performance so if we perform to the best of our ability we know we have a good chance so we’re just really going to focus on going out and putting in a big performance because I don’t think we’ve had a complete 60-minute whole team performance in the League so far yet."
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