Siofra O’Shea is happy to prioritise chasing glory with Kerry ahead of a potential international basketball career.
The Kingdom skipper has played basketball for Ireland from under-15 level up to under-20 and while she continues to line out in the National League for St Paul’s, Killarney, that’s as far as her ambitions on the court go for now at least.
“I suppose football has kind of taken over the last few years,” she said. “I’m happy out playing at National League level and keeping up the basketball, but I think the commitment now involved in an inter-county team with football, it’s so much.
“When the women’s national team are training so hard, they have big goals themselves and they have aspirations for bigger and better things, so I think you have to choose with your time.”
The domestic basketball season concluded in recent weeks, allowing O’Shea to focus fully on Kerry ahead of Sunday’s Division One Lidl National League final against Galway, while they will hope to go one better in the Championship having lost last year’s All-Ireland final to Meath.
“We were training three times a week with Kerry, two gym sessions, and for the last few weeks I was only making one basketball session.
“Probably at the start of the year when we were only in pre-season for football, we might have two basketball sessions and a game, but at this time, it’s different.
“The management were very good, our S&C coach actually plays on the basketball team with us so she was great at managing our load and making sure we weren’t doing too much.”
Reflecting on the crossover between the two sports, O’Shea said: “I think the main thing is spacial awareness; on the basketball court, it’s quite a tight space and you’re trying to pick a pass and pick the defence open.
“It works in then when you’re playing [football] in the forwards and trying to penetrate in on goal. You have a bit more space on the football pitch - when you’re used to such little space on the basketball court, it works in your favour.”
At just 21, she’s particularly young to be appointed captain of Kerry though, like the policy for the men’s team in the county, it came as a result of her club Southern Gaels winning last year’s county title, though the experience of captaining Ireland previously stands to her in that respect.
“Although I'm young, I've been around the panel a while and this is my fifth season involved so I've learned from the previous captains and there's great leaders around the team as well, older and more experienced girls who are still there and leading the way and help out.
“My vice-captains, Louise (Ní Mhuircheartaigh) and Anna (Galvin) are great for supporting and they're always helping me along the way.”
She added: “When you have experience of captaining your country it’s huge experience and from a young age as well when you’re put into that environment you have to learn a lot and you have to learn on your feet but you’re given a lot of support around Irish scenes and stuff so I probably have a bit of experience that I can draw on there.”
O’Shea was out of action 12 months ago when Kerry beat Armagh in the Division Two final as she was completing her recovery from a cruciate ligament injury sustained in June 2021, but Kerry’s march to an All-Ireland senior final followed by a Division One League final in the meantime reflects the progress that they are making.
“It’s definitely nice to be back here, you want to be playing at Croke Park, we had three trips up here last year – the League final, All-Ireland semi and All-Ireland final, so we got two out of the three results.
“After Meath beating us we have taken learnings from that and we’ve moved on, so it’s definitely nice to be back up here playing, it’s where everybody wants to be.”
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