McCarthy keeps hitting heights with the Eagles
Tipp hero has gone goal crazy in AFLW
W‘High-end skill has no gender boundaries’
HILE Vikki Wall’s first competitive goal in the AFLW for North Melbourne last weekend grabbed the headlines, the scoring exploits of another Irish recruit dipped below the radar.
However, and not just in terms of her goals, Tipperary’s Ashling McCarthy has been the form player of Ireland’s 22-strong imports over the first three rounds of the new season, despite her club West Coast Eagles’ mixed results.
The goals have helped, of course, hitting the target in three consecutive games to take her career tally to 13 in 26 games; an average of one every other game for the 26-year-old Cahir woman.
That she is finding her range with an oval ball will come as little surprise to those who saw her excel with the round one.
When Tipperary won the AllIreland intermediate title in 2017, she was their stand-out player, hitting 1-4 from midfield in the final against Tyrone, and ending the season as TG4’s intermediate player of the year.
It is her kicking skills, complemented by power and strength, that is turning heads in the AFLW, where her stunning strike in the opening round against Port Adelaide – thus far the Eagles’ only win – might just make the shortlist come the awards for goal of the season.
Gathering possession, she turned and hit the gas, leaving two Port Adelaide opponents choking on her fumes before angling over a sublime finish; a score that inevitably got the AFLW’s stamp of approval on digital media to remind that high-end skill has no gender boundaries.
Her performance in that opening round game was off the charts, also claiming two marks, six tackles and kicking a behind.
And she has not let up since, scoring against Gold Coast – one of only two goals the waning Eagles scored that afternoon – and last weekend in a heavy defeat to Essendon.
This weekend, if she needs inspiration to keep her prolific run going she will not have to look far, given she travels to Sydney to take on GWS Giants, who are still being nourished by the goalscoring returns of Cora Staunton.
But what has set McCarthy apart from others thus far has been her sustained form; in the AFLW formulaic match reports on its official site, it lists the four top performers from each team after every game, and she has been the Eagles’ only ever-present.
She has thrived since transferring from the Western Bulldogs at the end of 2020 and, in her first season with the Eagles, finished runner-up in the club’s best and fairest – essentially the player of the year award.
But, in a perverse way, a broken wrist injury sustained in last season’s round four game against Geelong might just be responsible for her red-hot start to the season, which resulted in her staying put in Australia in the close season so that she was primed for a pre-season that arrived much earlier this year due to the extended league format.
That was made easier also by the fact that in the past 12 months she has acquired dual citizenship through her Australian-born mother, which provides her with the green light to both work and play Down Under.
‘I’m very fortunate, lucky to have it. I know a lot of other Irish people out here that have been here six or seven years and don’t have it so I’m very grateful.
‘It just makes travelling between Australia and Ireland a bit better and it opens up opportunities to work as well outside of footy. My main focus is always football, but it’ll give me a bit more of a balance as well.
‘It was always probably my plan to stay here during the offseason. The onus was on me to try and get the best out of myself and realise my potential.
‘With (the season) being fast-tracked and brought forward, it just made me work that bit harder.
‘It’s really exciting to have a second season in the one year, and just be able to put out what we’ve learned from last season and try to put our best foot forward and try to learn from it and put a better version of West Coast out there this year,’ said McCarthy in a recent AFLW interview.
With Eagles languishing in the bottom half of the table, there is little evidence of that thus far, but what is clear is the AFLW is seeing the full version of McCarthy’s game.