Irish quartet bolsters Crows' AFLW ranks and finds home away from home

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4 hours ago

Any time Grace Kelly is struggling, the footballer turns to her Irish clan.
"Even if you are having kind of a bad day or thinking of home a lot, you just kind of go up to one of the Irish and talk about anything," she said.
Kelly was traded from St Kilda to the Adelaide Crows AFLW squad in the off-season, joining sister Niamh, as well as Amy Boyle-Carr and another new recruit, Kayleigh Cronin.
The league's Irish connection is getting stronger year by year, with 40 players from the Emerald Isle now on AFLW playing lists for the competition's 10th season.
Niamh Kelly believes there's a simple reason why so many Irish athletes who grew up playing Gaelic football are making the journey across the globe.
"The game is quite similar," she said.
"There are similar skills, like you handpass and kick-pass, it's a running game.
The increasing pay levels in AFLW are also a lure for the likes of County Kerry's Gaelic star Kayleigh Cronin.
"At home, football is amateur and they see the work that we put in and they say, 'It's going to be the exact same thing, but you're going to be getting paid for it'," she said.
"You're going to be living a better lifestyle, you don't have to get up the next morning after training and go to work."
But the move halfway around the world does involve upheaval — and while the Crows are a tight-knit group, there are times when that Irish connection is needed.
"We just gravitate to each other … sort of like a comfort blanket as such," Boyle-Carr said.
"It's just natural sometimes.
"I know a lot of the time whenever if one of us goes somewhere, it's like, 'Where's the rest of the Irish?'"
It can be amusing for the rest of the squad when the Irish quartet gets together.
"It's funny for the girls at the club," Cronin explained.
The Kelly sisters played together for three seasons at West Coast after they first came to Australia in 2020, before Niamh headed to the Crows and Grace joined the Saints.
To be back in the same colours is an AFLW reunion they did not expect.
"To be playing together now at the Crows is very special," Niamh said.
"When you are so far away from home, to have Grace here, but also the other Irish girls in Kayleigh and Amy as well … that Irish connection means a whole lot."
Adelaide was knocked out in the first week of last year's AFLW finals, losing by seven points to eventual premiers North Melbourne.
The club recruited well in the off-season and is again expected to challenge under the leadership of long-time coach Matthew "Doc" Clarke.
Earlier this year, Clarke announced he would be stepping down at the end of the upcoming season.
"Because it's Doc's last year as well, I think we all have that extra motivation to do it for him — not just him, but everyone in the program," Niamh said.
But 28-year-old Cronin — who is still settling into Adelaide, and is just five minutes from the house that the Kelly sisters and Boyle-Carr share — needs little extra motivation to succeed.
"Realistically, I'm too old, I don't have enough time to be arsing around really," she joked.
"There's no point of coming over and trying to be second best."
The AFLW season began on Thursday night, and the Crows will open their campaign against St Kilda on Sunday.