{"id":147514,"date":"2023-11-29T11:31:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T01:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/?p=147514"},"modified":"2023-11-29T11:31:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T01:31:12","slug":"erika-from-eire-living-the-dream-halfway-round-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2023\/11\/29\/erika-from-eire-living-the-dream-halfway-round-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Erika from Eire living the dream halfway round the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

THINGS have changed pretty dramatically in life in the last 12 months for Roo Erika O\u2019Shea<\/a>, going from a young Gaelic football star in Cork to a fully fledged AFLW player on the verge of her first grand final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Shea said that coming across to Australia as a 19-year-old was not easy, but the Kangaroos made the process easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI came out here at 19 so I\u2019m the youngest Irish AFLW player to come over, and it was a big transition,” she said. “My family have been amazing though, so hopefully they\u2019ll be able to come out this weekend and see the grand final in person. It was definitely a really hard transition, there was a lot to it and the club have been amazing. They really helped me settle so I was really lucky that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O’Shea is very excited about the prospect of playing in this weekend\u2019s decider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true, it\u2019s incredible,” she said. “I couldn\u2019t imagine being in a final after my second year, especially a grand final, in my second year of playing Aussie rules. It\u2019s incredible, it\u2019s a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is not the only one excited about her potentially playing in the decider, with O\u2019Shea fully expecting her entire hometown of Macroom, a short drive west of Cork City, to watch the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDefinitely, I think the whole town will be at the pub just to watch it,” O’Shea said. \u201cThe whole town will be there, a couple of thousand I hope. It is an exciting event for everyone back home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be an early start for those in Macroom, with the Grand Final set to kick off at 3:30am Irish time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not the first top level grand final O\u2019Shea has found herself preparing for in her young career, also being a member of the Cork Gaelic Football side that went on to play in the 2020 All-Ireland final, losing to Dublin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Shea said there are definitely some huge differences between the build up to the grand final this week and the All-Ireland back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like because here there\u2019s just another level of professionalism and that definitely has a huge difference between here and back home and this is just another level of it\u2019s elite and the facilities and everything are just incredible,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the differences, O\u2019Shea said that there are still things she learnt back then that she can use this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like playing in the All-Ireland so young, I was the youngest player in the Cork panel that year and I definitely learnt a lot from that and I feel like a lot of the nerves and how to deal with them before a game definitely helped and the experience, and hopefully I\u2019ll be able to bring it this weekend and the nerves will be gone for it,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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