SHE'S THE unknown Irishwoman who kept premiership tall Emma King out of North Melbourne's team for a few weeks, and is coming equal-second in the AFLW's leading goalkicker to boot.
Meet Blaithin (pronounced "blah-heen") Bogue, the 25-year-old from Fermanagh. One of the six Northern Ireland counties, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland and is close to the west coast.
Bogue was a late arrival to pre-season last year, making it out just two weeks before the 2024 season began due to her Gaelic football commitments, but had agreed to start pre-season on day one this year as a compromise.
She has played every game this season as a mid-sized forward, kicking 12 goals from her first six matches in the AFLW, after cooling her heels in the scrimmages for non-selected players last year.
Such has been her rapid rise, she's also signed on for another year at North Melbourne.
"I was the only (fit and available) Irish player last year who didn't get a game. There were times when I was questioning if I made the right move, but I couldn't have been more determined, coming back this year," Bogue told AFL.com.au.
"Kate Shierlaw and Emma Kearney put in a lot of work to help me get to where I am now, and 'Crock' (coach Darren Crocker) as well, so just thankful I'm on the team, and hopefully I keep on it.
"[Selection] is just so competitive, you know you have to work hard every game and you're just happy to make the squad every week, and to get that text from 'Crock' on a Wednesday to say you're in. Just hoping it stays like that for the rest of the season, but just taking it game by game."
Like many Irish before her, Bogue toiled away on learning the game, leaning on her senior Roos teammates and biding her time in the scrimmages for non-selected players.
"It was more just my football sense. I'm a more instinctive sort of player, and sometimes you need to knock that out of me, my running patterns and stuff like that.
"There is a lot of [commonality] between AFL and Gaelic, just in terms of running patterns – we tend to run towards the ball, whereas here you need to run towards goal. It's mainly just working on my running patterns and my kicking as well.
Dan (McKenzie), my forwards coach, and Nick (Devereux), he's our (head of) development coach, they've been good for helping us out in pre-season. Can't fault any of them, they've all been very good and great for helping us in this side."
Contrary to the common perception, Kim Rennie has been North Melbourne's number one ruck for a number of years, with King playing a key forward role while providing ruck support.
King was sidelined with a hamstring injury for the two practice games and first three rounds of the season, with her duties reallocated to Shierlaw, while Bogue took her spot in the 21 and provided plenty of speed at ground level.
Bogue’s form was so strong, that the veteran was then forced to cool her heels for another three weeks as an emergency, only recalled on Thursday night to replace omitted first-year player Amy Gavin Mangan.
Speaking after last week’s comfortable victory over Carlton, coach Crocker said getting King back into the side was a long-term plan.
"It's really difficult for 'Kingy'. I understand it could be a story every week, whether we pick her or whether we don't pick her. Unfortunately for Kingy at the moment, the team's just performing really well," he had said.
"Players within the team who are playing similar roles are performing well, and she's just going to have to keep working at knocking the door down to get into the team.
"She's trying to do everything she can, she's building her fitness up after an interrupted pre-season (hamstring injury) and now it's just – we want to set her up for success rather than failure, so when she comes back again we want to make sure she comes in and doesn't go back out."
