FOR SOMEONE WHO couldn’t get a kick, never mind a minute, for North Melbourne last season, the arrival of Bláithín Bogue into the AFLW scene this year has been like a comet.
In kicking three goals in the preliminary final against Melbourne to propel her North Melbourne to this Saturday’s Grand Final of the AFLW, she equalled the record number of goals ever in a season.
Currently, she is tied with Indy Tahau of Port Adelaide on 25. With one more game to go, there’s a high chance she is going to smash the record in the Grand Final against Brisbane Lions at Ikon Park this Saturday (deferred coverage on TG4, Saturday 3.55pm).
On a debut season. A week after being named as one of five Irish women on the All-Australian team of the year.
As stratospheric as her rise has been, there’s a little bit of ‘If You Know, You Know,’ among her home club of Tempo Maguires in Fermanagh.
A sister of Tiernan Bogue, a former Cormac McAnallen Medal winner at Queen’s University who has featured for Fermanagh seniors across several seasons, their father Kevin started taking U10 teams in the club along with another coaching stalwart in Declan McStravick.
She started by standing observing on the sidelines but at the first chance she could get, she was haring onto the pitch. From she was no age, she was a semi-permanent fixture at St Patrick’s Park.
That development, under various coaches in the club and through the Fermanagh underage system fed into her studies at Queen’s University, where she joined their elite athlete programme and graduated last year as a pharmacist.
At county level, her skills received national attention when she put on a display of feints and dummies in the 2022 All-Ireland junior final against Antrim in Croke Park.
Tempo people had seen it all before. Her father Kevin had drilled it with her up at the pitch.
“He used to drag out two bins onto the pitch and would make me sidestep them, get me to kick the ball low and hard into the corner when I was going for goal,” she tells The 42.
Kevin Bogue was a very good player who played some county football, but it has to be said that his brother Stephen ‘Minty’ was the possessor of a killer dummy.
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As Bláithín laughs, Minty doesn’t shy away from it either.
“He’s getting more clout out of this AFL thing than I am!” she says.
“There are people telling him that I have his sidestep. I don’t know, there’s a bit of a competition between himself and Dad as to how I got the sidestep from, but I have been told it is Minty!”
In the finest traditions of ‘show, don’t tell,’ just take a look at this clip below;
As a child, she was devoted to going up to the pitch and practising by herself. A promise to stay a half hour would be soon broken as the clock would tick closer to two hours.
That devotion to solo work was needed. When she went over to Melbourne last year, she did so with a dislocated shoulder. She struggled with the game and her surroundings.
On a trip home and undecided about going back, she took a Sherrin football that she aimed at a trailer in the yard. She would pop it in, fetch, then take two more steps back, and go again. Kick after kick, hour after hour until she went back to Australia a different animal.
Nowadays, she’s in thrall to Melbourne. She has company in her living quarters with fellow ‘Roo’, Amy Gavin Mangan from Offaly.
It’s been a journey, not always easy.
“When I came out last year, I didn’t know what I was coming out to, didn’t know anyone. A lot of Irish that come out to Australia, they would be coming out with a friend or a partner and joining in with an Irish community,” she says.
“I was lucky enough in that I was one of four Irish people and that was a little bit of home.
“But when you come into a new sport, it’s different. I have to say all the Australians around me were all so lovely, but it was a very different environment to what I was used to. And it probably took me until this year until I settled into the lifestyle.
“I got on with the girls last year but this year I just gelled a lot more and that has helped me enjoy it a lot more.”
Having been trained by the former Irish Rugby strength coach Mike McGurn at Queen’s, she’s long been used to the sharp end of sports science. She enjoys the training culture but admits there are certain elements that she thinks she could take back.
“We vote a player every week that we feel performed their best to our trademark,” she explains.
“And then the person who gets the most votes is the winner and the second-most is the runner-up. And then a couple of people explain why they voted for this player.
“It’s very good for team camaraderie and building a player’s confidence. To be voted and hear the reason why. And it’s not about kicking goals, quite often it’s about workrate and effort, courage. It builds a bit of a connection.”
Others, well, they takes getting used to!
“When I first came out here, I found some of it very different. After every drill, people were high-fiving!
“And you just walk with the hand out. That took a lot of getting used to, but now I am fully invested in it and the hand is up.”
Players like this don’t come along often in a county like Fermanagh. The good news for the Erne ladies is that she doesn’t see this as a long-term arrangement.
This weekend she takes part in the showcase game of the season. She will have Vikki Wall, Amy Gavin Mangan and Erika O’Shea for Irish support, while they face Brisbane Lions who have Irish interest in Jennifer Dunne, Orla O’Dwyer and Neasa Dooley.
As glamourous as it all sounds, there’s no place like home.
“I am very passionate about Gaelic. I just love playing for Tempo, I love playing for Fermanagh and the girls I play with on both of those, so I don’t think AFLW would ever come close to that,” she says.
“But it’s also the team I am playing for out here. When I do play a game I really want to win, because of the girls I am playing with and the coaches we have.
“We were playing last week in the preliminary final and had been losing for most of the game going into the final quarter and I was thinking, ‘I really do not want to lose this game.’
“But it showed that we all wanted to win for each other. When I am out here I am going to put in my full effort and I love the team I am playing for. I will put my heart and soul into it.”
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Dummying wheelie bins and kicking into trailers: Fermanagh star in AFLW Grand Final
FOR SOMEONE WHO couldn’t get a kick, never mind a minute, for North Melbourne last season, the arrival of Bláithín Bogue into the AFLW scene this year has been like a comet.
In kicking three goals in the preliminary final against Melbourne to propel her North Melbourne to this Saturday’s Grand Final of the AFLW, she equalled the record number of goals ever in a season.
Currently, she is tied with Indy Tahau of Port Adelaide on 25. With one more game to go, there’s a high chance she is going to smash the record in the Grand Final against Brisbane Lions at Ikon Park this Saturday (deferred coverage on TG4, Saturday 3.55pm).
On a debut season. A week after being named as one of five Irish women on the All-Australian team of the year.
As stratospheric as her rise has been, there’s a little bit of ‘If You Know, You Know,’ among her home club of Tempo Maguires in Fermanagh.
A sister of Tiernan Bogue, a former Cormac McAnallen Medal winner at Queen’s University who has featured for Fermanagh seniors across several seasons, their father Kevin started taking U10 teams in the club along with another coaching stalwart in Declan McStravick.
She started by standing observing on the sidelines but at the first chance she could get, she was haring onto the pitch. From she was no age, she was a semi-permanent fixture at St Patrick’s Park.
That development, under various coaches in the club and through the Fermanagh underage system fed into her studies at Queen’s University, where she joined their elite athlete programme and graduated last year as a pharmacist.
At county level, her skills received national attention when she put on a display of feints and dummies in the 2022 All-Ireland junior final against Antrim in Croke Park.
Tempo people had seen it all before. Her father Kevin had drilled it with her up at the pitch.
“He used to drag out two bins onto the pitch and would make me sidestep them, get me to kick the ball low and hard into the corner when I was going for goal,” she tells The 42.
Kevin Bogue was a very good player who played some county football, but it has to be said that his brother Stephen ‘Minty’ was the possessor of a killer dummy.
As Bláithín laughs, Minty doesn’t shy away from it either.
“He’s getting more clout out of this AFL thing than I am!” she says.
In the finest traditions of ‘show, don’t tell,’ just take a look at this clip below;
As a child, she was devoted to going up to the pitch and practising by herself. A promise to stay a half hour would be soon broken as the clock would tick closer to two hours.
That devotion to solo work was needed. When she went over to Melbourne last year, she did so with a dislocated shoulder. She struggled with the game and her surroundings.
On a trip home and undecided about going back, she took a Sherrin football that she aimed at a trailer in the yard. She would pop it in, fetch, then take two more steps back, and go again. Kick after kick, hour after hour until she went back to Australia a different animal.
Nowadays, she’s in thrall to Melbourne. She has company in her living quarters with fellow ‘Roo’, Amy Gavin Mangan from Offaly.
It’s been a journey, not always easy.
“When I came out last year, I didn’t know what I was coming out to, didn’t know anyone. A lot of Irish that come out to Australia, they would be coming out with a friend or a partner and joining in with an Irish community,” she says.
“I was lucky enough in that I was one of four Irish people and that was a little bit of home.
“But when you come into a new sport, it’s different. I have to say all the Australians around me were all so lovely, but it was a very different environment to what I was used to. And it probably took me until this year until I settled into the lifestyle.
“I got on with the girls last year but this year I just gelled a lot more and that has helped me enjoy it a lot more.”
Having been trained by the former Irish Rugby strength coach Mike McGurn at Queen’s, she’s long been used to the sharp end of sports science. She enjoys the training culture but admits there are certain elements that she thinks she could take back.
“We vote a player every week that we feel performed their best to our trademark,” she explains.
“And then the person who gets the most votes is the winner and the second-most is the runner-up. And then a couple of people explain why they voted for this player.
“It’s very good for team camaraderie and building a player’s confidence. To be voted and hear the reason why. And it’s not about kicking goals, quite often it’s about workrate and effort, courage. It builds a bit of a connection.”
Others, well, they takes getting used to!
“When I first came out here, I found some of it very different. After every drill, people were high-fiving!
“And you just walk with the hand out. That took a lot of getting used to, but now I am fully invested in it and the hand is up.”
Players like this don’t come along often in a county like Fermanagh. The good news for the Erne ladies is that she doesn’t see this as a long-term arrangement.
This weekend she takes part in the showcase game of the season. She will have Vikki Wall, Amy Gavin Mangan and Erika O’Shea for Irish support, while they face Brisbane Lions who have Irish interest in Jennifer Dunne, Orla O’Dwyer and Neasa Dooley.
As glamourous as it all sounds, there’s no place like home.
“I am very passionate about Gaelic. I just love playing for Tempo, I love playing for Fermanagh and the girls I play with on both of those, so I don’t think AFLW would ever come close to that,” she says.
“But it’s also the team I am playing for out here. When I do play a game I really want to win, because of the girls I am playing with and the coaches we have.
“We were playing last week in the preliminary final and had been losing for most of the game going into the final quarter and I was thinking, ‘I really do not want to lose this game.’
“But it showed that we all wanted to win for each other. When I am out here I am going to put in my full effort and I love the team I am playing for. I will put my heart and soul into it.”
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AFLW GRAND FINAL Aussie Rules Bláithín Bogue dummy GAA Kicker LGFA MINTY DUMMY