ARMAGH vice-captains Lauren McConville and Blaithin Mackin along with Forkhill native Amy Mulholland are the three Orchard county representatives among the record contingent of 34 Irishwomen involved in the ninth edition of the AFLW, which gets underway this Friday, writes Richard Bullick.

Crossmaglen’s McConville has just joined Queensland’s Gold Coast Suns, where she has three fellow Ulsterwoman for company including Donegal captain Niamh McLaughlin, Down’s Clara Fitzpatrick and Cara McCrossan from Tyrone.

Blaithin Mackin is back at 2022 champions Melbourne Demons along with Dublin legend Sinead Goldrick but her elder sister Aimee Mackin will have to sit out this campaign after rupturing her cruciate during Armagh’s Ulster final victory in May.

Like Blaithin Mackin, this is Mulholland’s third AFLW season and she will be one of five Irishwomen out west at Fremantle Dockers along with Tipperary’s Aisling McCarthy, Leitrim’s Aine Tighe, Orlagh Lally from Meath and Roscommon’s Joanne Cregg.

Along with McConville’s Gold Coast Suns, there are two other teams with an Irish quartet, including Geelong Cats who have the Tipp pair of Aishling Moloney and Anna-Rose Kennedy plus Mayo’s Rachel Kearns and newcomer Kate Kenny from Offaly.

After her failed bid to make the Paris Olympics with the Irish rugby sevens side, Meath’s 2021 All Ireland Player of the Year Vikki Wall has returned to North Melbourne Kangaroos after pulling out of last season.

Cork’s Erika O’Shea is still there along with Tipperary’s Niamh Martin and they are joined by Blaithin Bogue, who won the All Ireland Junior Championship with Fermanagh last month and is one of 10 Ulsterwomen with AFLW contracts for the coming season.

Tanya Kennedy is at Sydney Swans with the Kerry duo of Julie O’Sullivan and Paris McCarthy who missed the Kingdom’s long-awaited All Ireland win, and Amy Boyle-Carr has joined former Mayo captain Niamh Kelly at Adelaide Crows.

Monaghan’s Muireann Atkinson joins another AFLW stalwart from Mayo, Sarah Rowe, at Collingwood Magpies while Niamh Kelly’s sister Grace Kelly is the sole Irishwoman at St Kilda Saints.

Mayo are the most heavily-represented county in the AFLW with their half dozen players also including Dayna Finn, who is at Carlton Blues with Erone Fitzpatrick from Laois, and Aileen Gilroy, contracted to Hawthorn Hawks along with Galway’s Aine McDonagh.

The Tipperary contingent of five is headed by Ireland’s biggest AFLW star Orla O’Dwyer, while wonderful Dublin midfielder Jennifer Dunne is also back with Brisbane Lions for their title defence.

The highly-decorated Cora Staunton also made a real name for herself in the early years of the AFLW with Greater Western Sydney Giants, whose sole Irish representative this time is Leitrim native Eilish O’Dowd, an All Ireland winner with her adopted Dublin last year.

Either way, there are 17 counties featured on this season’s AFLW list but, if we count O’Dowd as a Leitrim woman, it means Connacht are level with Ulster on 10 representatives each followed by eight from Munster and Leinster supplying just six.

For the record the five AFLW franchises with no Irishwomen on their books for the forthcoming campaign are West Coast Eagles, Essendon Bombers, Western Bulldogs, Richmond Tigers and Port Adelaide.

The competition has expanded in terms of the number of competing teams from eight to the present 18 and likewise Irish representation from just five in 2019 to this fresh high which is one more than last year even with Aimee Mackin and Cavan’s Aishling Sheridan ruled out.

McConville played Aussie Rules at club level while living and working Down Under for the best part of a couple of years ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic and even picked up a Player of the Season award with the wonderfully-named South Warrnambool Roosters!

Arriving just a few weeks before the new AFLW season starts, that has helped McConville to hit the ground running and, by all accounts, she has impressed her new employers both in training and a pre-season friendly debut in the Suns’ 68-20 victory over Western Bulldogs.

It is a baptism of fire but Irish rookies have done well in the AFLW so, given McConville’s diligence and determination never mind all-round ability, it would be no surprise to see the 29-year-old making an impact pretty quickly for Gold Coast Suns.

The teams with Armagh interest all have Saturday games this weekend, starting with Mulholland’s Fremantle Dockers away to Essendon followed by McConville’s Gold Coast Suns hosting St Kilda Saints and then Mackin’s Melbourne Demons going to Geelong Cats.