‘What other sport would say nothing if they lost 50 of their biggest stars’

Wayne Freeman, the manager of the Meath ladies football team, says something has to be done about the way Aussie Rules clubs are signing up female Gaelic footballers from Ireland.

While he stresses that he’s the last person to want to stand in the way of a young player going to Australia to further her career he feels changes are needed in the way players are unceremoniously plucked from the Irish game.

He feels that if the issue is not addressed ASAP it could seriously undermine the relevance of inter-county ladies football.

“I can’t for the life of me understand how the LGFA haven’t made a statement on it. It could in some capacity destroy the inter-county game in ladies football,” he says.

“The ladies game isn’t at the strongest position it would like to be right now although the rule changes will help that situation definitely, but overall they are not in a position of strength and they are certainly not in a position to lose 50 of their best players and their biggest names.

“If this was happening in men’s football there would be an absolute uproar over it, you could see the Kerry chairman recently giving out stink about losing a couple of young lads, never mind the best players in the country. It’s not good, it’s absolutely not good.”

Recently appointed Meath manager, Freeman has been involved in ladies football for years and previously had spells in charge of the Louth and Clare senior teams.

He says the individual players have “every right” to take up an offer in Australia if they so wish, they are not the issue. What concerns and clearly agitates Freeman is that there is often no contact from the AFLW clubs with the ruling bodes in Ireland.

“They just take whoever they want at this stage, they just contact the players. It’s extremely difficult on the counties really when they are putting so much work, and expense, into developing players.

“I do feel the LGFA have just swept this under the carpet because what other sport would say nothing if they lost 50 of their biggest stars, it’s all a bit strange.”

He admits he’s not sure what the answer is right now but “opening communications lines” between clubs in Aussie Rules and county boards would be a good start.

“They just care for themselves over there and they have every right to, but I do feel that since it's so detrimental to our sport we should be the first ones to engage them in conversation, if they are not going to bother, then something has to come from our hierarchy, our top table.

“We have to reach out to them and see is there anything that can be done to try and muster up some sort of a plan. I don’t know whether we alter our season, I don’t know. There definitely has to be a sit down with a couple of the biggest brains in the sport and come up with some unique ideas about what can be done.”

As an inter-county manager he says he is deeply frustrated by what is happening while repeating that the players are certainly not the issue.

In recent years Meath have lost the richly talented Vikki Wall, Orlagh Lally and Aoibhin Cleary to Aussie Rules. Now Sarah Wall is set to move Down Under later this year although she will be available to the Royals for their league campaign. And others have been approached about their availability. Last summer Meath had Vikki Wall available to them for the championship but all the indications are that such a scenario will not be allowed to continue into the future as the Aussie Rules pre-season starts in our early summer. Such a restriction would present further problems for Gaelic football managers seeking to plan ahead.

“We have no understanding of when they can and can’t take players. Can they ring someone in the middle of June and say come out we’ll pay you this or in the middle of March? They had their draft just before Christmas, is that the end point? We have no clue!

“We are back training in December, we are planning from November, bringing in players, it’s not just us. Mayo have been probably the most effected in recent years, Meath very close behind them. You get to January and you don’t know if you’re going to have one or two for the summer so it’s very unfair.

“I don’t know if there is a solution but there definitely needs to be a conversation around how we can make it a little bit better and streamline it a little bit more.

“It’s frustrating for managers and players. They want to go to Australia and get experience but they also want to play for their counties their clubs as well. I don’t know how we find the best of both worlds. Maybe it’s not possible but we do have to try,” concluded Freeman who will lead Meath for the first time in Sunday's NFL Div 1 opener against Galway in Summerhill.