AILEEN Gilroy doesn't know what next season will bring, or even if there will be a next season.

The dynamic Irishwoman is just focused on securing at least one more game for Hawthorn by knocking off Carlton in Saturday night's semi-final. 

The 32-year-old is out of contract at the end of this season, and has her wedding on the horizon back home in County Mayo. There's the resumption of a personal training career awaiting her if and when she chooses to pull the pin on AFLW.

"This year, I think I just want to concentrate on obviously this weekend, and finish up the rest of the year, and then see what happens next year. I get married next year as well, so have to be thinking about all of that stuff as well. But no, just want to finish up this season and see how it all unfolds," Gilroy told AFL.com.au.

"I have not a clue. I'm literally just concentrating on this season. I think when I go back home, then I'll try and figure out what I want to do.

"Obviously, like missing family and friends and stuff like that is a big part when you're Irish and it's not as if it's easy to just hop on a plane, like it's a 24-hour-plus trip. So yeah, I think that's what I need to do, just go home and think about it, and just reset."

It's been a tough year for the bullocking half-forward, the first time that injuries have hit during the season. Her hamstrings have been troublesome during pre-seasons past, and she did two knees during her Gaelic career, but she hadn't been forced to the AFLW sidelines until 2025. Ultimately, she sat out the first five games of the season.

"It was always a low grade one in the hamstring, but it just wasn't recovering. I think it a lot of it could have been me just trying to push myself to try and get back, because I'm not good person on the sidelines. So I'm always trying to test it out, and so a lot of that was all my fault," Gilroy said.

"I actually got a few messages from home asking if I was pregnant, I was missing games that much. And I was like, 'I am not, trust me, I am just waiting to get back to peak fitness'. It obviously dragged out longer than we expected. 

"But again, these things happen. Like, I'm not a young girl, I'm not 18 anymore, where a niggle can be gone in a few days. It obviously took longer, but I'm all the better for it now, and I feel like coming into finals, I'm actually really finding my feet now."

Hawthorn is coming into the sudden-death final on the back of successive losses to record-breaking side North Melbourne (coincidentally Gilroy's former team), and managed just three points last Friday night.

Aine McDonagh (under an injury cloud with knee bruising) is clearly the Hawks' best forward, having kicked 21 goals to date, with Greta Bodey managing 11 and Kaitlyn Ashmore and Laura Stone rounding out the podium with just three apiece.

"You have to give it to North – they haven't built this over a few seasons, and they're the best-ever AFLW team to have been part of this competition," Gilroy said.

"I think we did really well for the first three quarters (last week), then dropped off in our fourth quarter. So that's definitely something that we're like, okay, we need to start putting these four quarters together, because you're not going to win a game if you're only playing three.

"Obviously we didn’t score a goal, and everyone knows that, but we also did get 28 inside 50s, which is promising. We didn't score, but we had the opportunity to get goals, and we didn't take them.

"Aine is doing a fantastic job, so it's kind of like, if it's working, why change it? Well done, fair play to her, and then for the rest of us, it's about us upping our own game. We need to use Aine as much as we can, because she's obviously doing damage, but also upping our game as well – no-one's out there not to score or try to miss. We need to grow in confidence, and we haven't done that over the last few weeks, but hopefully this weekend, we can."