PREVIEW | AFL Ireland Grand Final Day 2024

IT is the biggest day on the AFL Ireland calendar tomorrow – Grand Final Day.

The AFL Ireland community will converge on Mountmellick GAA Club in Laois for Grand Final day, which will see the women’s and men’s premiers both decided.

In the women’s competition, it is a repeat of the 2023 decider as last year’s champions the Cork Vikings will be looking to repeat history when they take on the South Dublin Swans.

Cork is a strong team, with more than half of the Irish national team that went to the recent Transatlantic Cup calling the Rebel County home. This includes Banshees’ skipper Amanda Brosnan, and star forwards Anne-Marie Troy and Shannon Stevenson. Stevenson was Best on Ground in last year’s decider, so the Vikings will be looking to her to have another big game this time around.

The Swans are not without national team representation themselves, with Amber Redmond and Shauna Kendrick two of the five Swans that were in the Banshees’ squad for the Cup.

The way that this season has gone, the Vikings are the ones that will head into tomorrow’s match as favourites. They have been the dominant side all season, regularly scoring over 100 points and severely restricting their opponents’ score by comparison.

This is no different when looking at the matches between the Vikings and Swans specifically.

Back in round one the Vikings won by 106 points, while in round four the margin 95 points. The third match that was supposed to happen between the sides this season ultimately did not go ahead.

Tomorrow is a particularly big day for the Swans, with their men’s side also in action against the Leeside Lions.

This match is also a repeat of last year’s decider, and much like their women’s side the Swans will be hoping history does not repeat as Leeside were the 2023 champions.

20 members of the national team that went to the Transatlantic Cup will be playing in this match, with the vast majority of those playing for the Cork based Lions.

The women’s Grand Final will kick off at 1pm tomorrow (10pm AEST) before the men’s match kicks off at 3pm tomorrow (12am Sunday AEST). Streaming options for the match are yet to be confirmed, but stay tuned to the AFL Ireland socials for the announcement about streaming.

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