ALTHOUGH the start to her Australian adventure was a little rushed, Melbourne’s newest Irish star Blaithin Mackin has loved her time in Melbourne thus far.

“I’ve loved it,” she said.

“From the day I got here everyone’s been really welcoming from the girls to the management. Obviously living with Fitzy and Banno has been so good, they’re two really good girls and have helped me make an easy transition because obviously it’s not easy coming from the other side of the world, but the club in general has been really good.

“Even taking my family and my boyfriend out for my debut game was amazing. It was just such a good surprise, and it was nice to have a bit of home here for that because it can be hard, you still miss everyone but I think the team and the club have made it really easy and helped me in that side of it.

“I’ve loved seeing Melbourne, I’ve loved exploring and then the game has just been so good to keep getting more and more knowledge and trying to improve with everyone around me, so it’s been good so far.”

Originally coming from a Gaelic background, Mackin already has an extensive Gaelic career under her belt even at the age of 23.

“I’ve played Gaelic since I was walking really,” she said. Since probably about four or five with my brothers and sisters, started with my club and then went I got to 11 or 12 started playing with Armagh, and I’ve played every age group up to Senior now. On the Armagh Senior Panel, and that’s probably my sixth or seventh year on the Senior Panel, so played it for a long time.”

Like many of the other Irish girls out in the AFLW competition, watching her fellow Irish in the AFLW is what inspired Mackin to want to come out to Australia, and after Michael Currane and the team at AFLW Ireland approached her and after chats with Melbourne coach Mick Stinear and the team at the team at the Dees, things got rolling.

However, then she hit an issue with her visa.

Although a resident of Northern Ireland, she holds an Irish passport (which allowed under the 1998 Good Friday agreement which allowed residents of the North to hold British or Irish passports or both), which the Australian authorities had issues with and delayed her journey out to Australia.D

Despite not knowing fellow Irish Dee Sinead Goldrick before joining the red and blue, Mackin said that the Dubliner has helped her a lot in settling in to the Dees, and Goldrick has really used her past experiences as an Irish player coming over to help the newer Irish Dee settle in.

Although only in her first season in the AFLW, the Dees allowed Mackin to finish up her Ladies’ Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) season with The Orchard County before coming out to Melbourne.

Without that permission, Mackin does not think she would have said yes to coming out to Australia this year.

“When I got contacted it was the middle of our season so I had already committed to that season and I wouldn’t have walked away halfway through a season because I don’t think it would be right by the girls or by management that I was with back there, so I probably would have still taken the opportunity but I would have had to wait until next year if that was the case, just because I couldn’t stop in the middle of a season and leave them high and dry,” she said.

With the limited time she had to learn the game, Mackin said that it was tricky, but not necessarily stressful.

“I try to not put too much pressure on myself because I wasn’t getting put under pressure by anyone, I was just getting helped, which I think was probably the main thing,” she siad.

“Like there was nobody giving off to me if I’ve done something wrong or if I mess up the team, and the coaches were really helpful, so that probably made it less stressful, but still very, very difficult. (It was) stressful in certain ways, you can get frustrated at yourself if you’re not executing things properly, but the help from the managers and particularly Mick made it an easier process even though it was still really hard but in terms of stress and emotionally Mick helped put all of that to bed and just really sort of nail down and knuckle down and just work on my skills at sort of my own pace but try and do it as quickly as possible at the same.”

Back at home she is a midfielder, and she reckons this may be why the Dees have trained her to be a wing, because there are similarities between both roles in terms of the amount of running required.

She has picked up the game quickly, with a goal under her belt and the art of selling the candy already in the tool bag. She has firmly cemented her spot in Melbourne’s starting side after making her debut in Round 4, so it is now full steam ahead for this star from Armagh.