By Annie Flynn
TWO months ago Blaíthín Bogue boarded the plane to Melbourne as she set off on a new adventure Down Under. The 24-year-old from Tempo was signed by Australian Football League Women’s side North Melbourne Kangaroos on a two-year contract.
Bogue missed most of the Kangaroos’ preseason preparations because of Fermanagh’s glorious run to the All-Ireland Junior title where the talented forward played her part on the first Sunday in August.
Since then, she has spent the last eight weeks adapting her game in Oz and while she’s still hoping to make an impact on the field, her experience to date is something she is relishing;
“It’s been really good, I’ve been really enjoying it; obviously the lifestyle – I train on a Tuesday, Wednesday Friday, then there’s matches at the weekend.”
On Saturday, Bogue was named as one of three ‘emergency’ players for their game against Western Bulldogs but unfortunately didn’t feature so her wait to showcase her talents in a game continues.
It’s been difficult for the Tempo woman watching on from the sidelines but she understands the reasoning behind it;
“This team has been building for a couple of years and then obviously missing three months of pre-season where they have been working on all their structure and stuff like that, it’s very hard to come in and expect to be playing.
“When you get a bit down about not breaking onto the team yet, you have to remind yourself that you’re getting paid to go training all the time and the gym. I do feel I’m definitely getting fitter and stronger. I can’t complain.
“I’m signed on for another year, next year, so if I don’t get game time this year I’ve always got next year.”
Bogue is vying for the ‘small forward’ position along with six others, with four places up for grabs. The transition from Gaelic Games to Australian football has some crossovers but in certain aspects it’s a learning curve for Bogue;
“Spatial awareness of AFL is completely different to Gaelic. We kind of run into space, I’d want the ball into space but in AFL they want to kick the ball into contest, like a contest all the time. It’s hard to get use to that part of it.
“It’s also a lot of running patterns; sometimes in Gaelic you see ball; get ball, here you have to stick to your role, so there’s kind of more learning to it.”
But there are attributes she can bring that others may not.
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