VIKKI WALL HAS confirmed her inter-county availability for 2023.
Speaking to Jerome Quinn for a documentary on Meath ladies’ remarkable success, the 2021 Footballer of the Year and All-Star explained how she can commit for the Royals’ three in-a-row bid despite her AFLW commitments at North Melbourne.
“I’ll be playing for Meath this year,” Wall said, revealing that she’s on a “two-year contract, but it doesn’t start until August of next year, so I’ll be home playing for Meath.
“It is a two-year contract, because it’s still semi-professional, it’s not full-year round.
“It was one of the main reasons why I chose North Melbourne — how much they valued how much I value playing football. It’s probably one of the core things of why we clicked, and why I went there in the end. It was part of the clause. Even them allowing me to go over later last year, and this year, conversations that as long as they’re happy with me and I’m happy to stay in touch over here, that will be the plan.”
Meath LGFA shared the video on Twitter, adding: “What a Great Christmas present for all Meath Ladies supporters. Vikki’s back.”
Christmas has come early for Meath.. Vikki Wall stays!
— Jerome Quinn (@JeromeQuinn) December 23, 2022
In an interview for a documentary on @meathladiesMLGF success, Vikki explains to me how her Australian contract allows her to commit to @LadiesFootball in 2023.
Filmed by @MQ_Video, with thanks to the @KepakGroup pic.twitter.com/InDjjXGAEc
Wall was one of 22 Irish players on the books of AFLW clubs last season. Most of those who fly the flag Down Under are top inter-county footballers here. For years, they enjoyed the best of both worlds, balancing their two sports on opposite sides of the world. They travelled to Australia for pre-season in October or November, played from January to mid-April at the latest, and the vast majority of them returned home for the business end of the league and for championship.
But the most recent AFLW season kicked off in August, meaning several absentees from the inter-county scene as they committed to pre-season in Australia. Just four of the 22 played on home soil: Meath duo Wall and Orlagh Lally — the latter plying her trade at Fremantle — and Melbourne’s Premiership-winning pair Sinéad Goldrick (Dublin) and Blaithin Mackin (Armagh).
As the relatively-new AFLW continues to build and grow, with greater structures in place and more home-grown talent coming through the ranks, there’s talk that there’ll be less of a need for Irish imports going forward. But as Melbourne list manager Todd Patterson told The42 recently, “I think that in the next five years that appetite and need will remain.”
“One of the main challenges is clearly going to be the season length,” he added. “I think some clubs have different sort of attitudes to us around county commitments. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. I think there’ll probably be more girls again that step away from county next year. I find that really interesting, it’s certainly not something that we impress upon the girls.”
Wall enjoyed a stellar debut season with North, heading Down Under shortly after sealing back-to-back All-Ireland senior titles in July. Now, the aim is three in-a-row — under new manager Davy Nelson, who takes the reins from Eamonn Murray.
“Yeah, absolutely,” the Dunboyne star enthused. “I think there’s so much potential in Meath. I think there’s so much more to achieve. That’s why I have such mixed opinions on… even sitting down and talking about it, reflecting on it like it’s a thing of the past, I think it’s so current.
“Sport is so fickle — if you sit on your laurels for even a year, things can change so quickly. We saw Meath were a senior team and then we were swiftly in Division 3 and swiftly an intermediate team, and I don’t want to let it get back to that ever. Not that it’s bad to be Division 3 or intermediate, but with the talent and things we have in Meath, I don’t think we should be competing at those levels.”
