TIPPERARY STAR FORWARD Aishling Moloney has re-iterated her firm stance that women must support women if ladies football, and women’s sport in general, is to grow.
While she, like most, feels that ladies football has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years both on and off the field, Moloney believes there is much more to do with regard support and crowds at matches.
Attendances on All-Ireland final day have increased drastically over the past few years, with 56,114 watching on as Dublin beat Galway in the 2019 decider.
2014: 27,374
2015: 31,083
2016: 34,445
2017: 46,286
2018: 50,141
2019: 56,114
But there’s work to be done to spread that out through the year, rather than just at the marquee event.
Croke Park hosted both All-Ireland semi-finals for the first time ever last summer in an effort to do just that, with 10,886 attending that day.
But Moloney feels that people need to make more of an effort all year around to support their county ladies football team though league and championship.
“Women need to start supporting women too,” the 21-year-old ace said last month.
“You’ll always see parents bringing younger girls and boys to the men’s games but they rarely bring the young girls to the girls’ games. For them it’s great to have role models in both codes, men and women.”
And the 2019 TG4 Intermediate Player of the Year has since doubled down on her sentiments, calling on county boards to encourage younger girls to get involved.
“The main thing is when you go to a men’s game, you’ll always see parents — both male and female — bringing the little girls,” Moloney told The42 at the 2020 Lidl Ladies National Football League launch.
“I often wonder why can’t they bring them [to the ladies football games].
When I was younger, I was brought to the men’s games. I was never brought to the ladies games only for I begged mam and dad to bring me one day. That’s something that needs to change.
“It comes from emphasis from the county as well to start encouraging younger girls, and holding mini games at half time of ours to up the attendance.
“Definitely, we all need to start rowing in together now and driving this forward for the year that it is and the 20×20 campaign.”
The impact of the Australian Football League Women’s [AFLW] on ladies football is something that’s been in the spotlight over the past few days, since Mayo boss Peter Leahy aired his beliefs that it has the “potential to damage” ladies football “quite extensively, and that there should be a rule that players should have to pick one or the other.
With 18 Irishwomen on the books there ahead of the start of the 2020 AFLW season, Moloney recently revealed that she had been approached by several Australian clubs, but her studies in Dublin City University [DCU] and football commitments are keeping her firmly on home soil currently.
With her close college friends Sarah Rowe and Aishling Sheridan plying their trade at Collingwood, and Tipperary duo Aisling McCarthy (Western Bulldogs) and Orla O’Dwyer (Brisbane Lions) — the dual star scored her first goal for the side in a pre-season match this week — among those she’s keeping a close eye on, Moloney is happy with her decision to stay put. For now.
“I’m looking at Sarah and the two Aislings over there at the moment and the lovely tanlines that they’re working on while we’re at home here, slogging in the muck for the league,” she laughs.
Look, it’s amazing opportunity for them, you can’t take it away from them. It’s obviously something that’s not on my radar at the minute, maybe in the future, it might be something.
“But I’m looking forward to having the two girls back to Tipperary, it will be a big boost when they come back.”
After an opening round draw with three-in-a-row All-Ireland champions Dublin last weekend — in which Moloney scored a late free and accounted for 1-6 (1-3 from play) — Tipperary’s attention now turns to Munster rivals Cork on Sunday.
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The really ridiculous thing is the divisional finals. Having won all their divisional games, Limerick then had to go and play 2nd place Dublin. If you’re top of the league, you win. Its not as if its a humongous money spinning game for the GAA.
There should be 8 teams in Division 1. As a Dub i’m delighted with the win on Saturday night but it could have gone either way. Limerick don’t deserve to be playing in 1B. They should be playing in the Top Division with teams of the same calibre as them.
Limerick should be in the top flight no doubts.
Losing one playoff shouldn’t doom a good team to another year playing teams they’re clearly superior to.
Helps nobody
Of course leagues are ‘elitist’ – but that’s why there are leagues in the first place. Allen would be on the other side of the fence if Limerick were made to play a few meaningless games against Longford or Warwickshire in a pre-Championship tournament.
On a broader point, it seems this year like every division below 1A has one or two teams that are evidently on a higher plane than everyone else – Dublin and Limerick in 1B, Laois and Westmeath in 2A, Meath and London in 2B, Fingal in 3A and Longford in 3B (perhaps less so in the 3A and 3B divisions).
It seems like the bands of teams would be much fairer if the league was restructured into five tiers, with eight teams in Division 1 and the rest of the country (36 teams, if you brought Cavan back in) split into four divisions of seven teams each. The likes of Laois and Westmeath – Liam MacCarthy teams, basically – get back with their own kind in Division 2; Meath or London get into the third tier where they’re given a decent challenge to rise up a few notches, and Fingal or Donegal are taken out of a division where they’re consistently beating the likes of Fermanagh and Tyrone.
To be honest it seems like there are only two issues with the idea: firstly, that it would mean a few extra Sundays taken out of the county club championships (which shouldn’t be too much of a problem considering every county previously took part in an eight-county division until fairly recently), and secondly, that you’d have the seven lowest teams given the dubious honour of playing in ‘Division 5′. Realistically this is just a branding thing: I don’t see the difference between putting a team in Division 5 and putting them in Division 3B (why isn’t it called Division 6? it’s not as if Divisions 1, 2 and 3 carry any equality to the four tiers of Championship hurling anyway). A rose by another other name…
The GAA needs a complete overhaul. I know traditionalists wont like the idea, but I would love to get rid of pre league tournaments like the McGrath cup. Run off provincial championships in March&April. Then roll league and championship into one champions league style tournament 16 teams in hurling – 4 groups of 4 and top 2 from each into quarter finals. 32 teams in football (4 groups of 8 teams) top 2 from each into quarters. This would also help create a proper calendar for club fixtures.
It should be an 8 team division one, the current 6 plus Dublin and limerick! you need to have promotion and relegation
I don’t get how an eight team division one solves the problem of an elite six team division 1a. If anything it makes the situation worse. Think about it, Limerick played four of six games against Dublin(twice), Wexford and Offaly. Cork or Clare will replace Dublin next year. It’s a bit much for Limerick to believe they’re too good for that type of opposition.
With an eight team division one, the likes of Wexford will play six of seven games against Carlow, Antrim, Laois, Kerry, Westmeath and Down in division two. Being in a six team division 1b in spring is a reasonable preparation for the championship, and even offers a route to winning the league. Finding yourself in an eight team division two would be a far bigger setback.
Billy, Limerick and Dublin are better teams than wexford and offaly. they are on the same level as cork, clare and waterford and this was clear in lasts years championship. Being denied promotion two years ago was insulting. They top the league yet are still in the same division . The young players coming through need to be playing the stronger sides to develop and to make the championship stronger.
10 team in Div 1 Of hurling league .. Would include current 6 plus Dublin, Limerick, Offaly and Wexford
The format for the championship is no better. There’s more chopping and changing than their is in a match itself.
A league is a league – you win the league – end of story .