AISHLING Moloney: star Irish key forward with Geelong, champion Gaelic football forward with Tipperary, PE and biology teacher, and a poultry farmer in her spare time.

Life back home in Ireland looks very different for Moloney to the one she lives in Australia.

The Moloney family – mum Gerty, dad Marty, brothers Daniel and Oisin, and Aishling herself – run a duck and pheasant conservation farm in Poulmucka, a tiny village of a couple of houses in county Tipperary.

"It's a bit mad. I'd say you've seen a few of my videos, in and around the ducks. There's probably only three of us in the country that's doing this, it's very niche," Moloney told AFL.com.au.

"In our spare time, most days you've got to tend to animals, it takes a lot of caring.

"You're bedding them down, feeding them, giving them water, and then we sell them on for conservation purposes when they reach 13, 14 weeks old. Pretty little birds seen all over Ireland, and they all come from our farm."

Geelong was in a fierce bidding war for Moloney's services with a few other AFLW teams – with Brisbane the most keen – and knew the country girl would feel comfortable in the country team.

The Cats even went as far as driving her from Tullamarine Airport to Geelong via the back roads, to highlight the dairy farms which surround the town.

"It's bizarre, when you're home in Ireland and on a zoom call to a few different clubs, you can't gauge where you're going to be happy and settled," Moloney said.

"Geelong is so good to me, out in the country, I enjoy that aspect. I'm not really a city girl. It's only when I come out that I realised I would have really been out of my comfort zone had I signed with a club in the city. I was kind of settled the minute I arrived here in Geelong.

"Irish are just annoying, I think, we just love home and we always want to be at home. No matter the Irish you meet out here, whether playing sport or just generally working, we're all just proud of where we're from. I do miss elements of being at home, but I also have the opportunity to come out here, and it's got me to embrace a whole new culture and take up a new sport."

"I've definitely learnt a lot about my sport, and if I hadn't had accepted this move to come out here, I probably wouldn't have stepped out of my comfort zone. I think we get on quite well though, Aussies and Irish are very similar in a lot of ways. There's no real barrier there."

For the first time since she was about eight, Moloney has stepped out of her national Gaelic football season with Tipperary, giving her body a much-needed break from the relentless 12-month cycle of Gaelic-AFLW-Gaelic.

"I don't think it ever gets easy, even just watching them play. I was up till whatever time in the morning overnight watching them play against Kerry. It's never easy, but it's something that eventually you're going to have to let go of.

"I've felt in the last few seasons, I've been quite rushed. I've come out here and gone straight into the new season, then run back home essentially to get into another season.

"I felt like being out here earlier this season, I've actually settled in Australia now. I essentially feel like I'm living here. It's only when you stop and pause you begin to realise it was quite hectic, the schedule, going from one sport straight into another."

In a bid to stay active – admitting the quest for motivation doesn't come easily outside of structured training – Moloney got busy in the local sporting scene over Christmas and the opening months of the year.

"I had to go and buy myself an Apple watch to keep myself accountable. I picked up seven-a-side soccer in a local village, Rosegreen, so that was great craic. What else did I try out? I went back to my local (Gaelic) football club (Cahir), so played with them, that was pretty cool, I haven't played with them in years.

"Went back and played hurling. (List manager) Benny Waller saw a picture of me playing hurling and he wasn't too impressed, but that was pretty cool to get back around them as well. I've no broken fingers, thank god, that was the main worry for me.

"It was difficult, and it is still difficult, but you've got to make choices in life, and this is the right choice for me."

The 28-year-old will represent Ireland in the upcoming NAB AFLW representative game against Australia on August 1, reuniting with old college housemate Sarah Rowe.

Egged on by Rowe, who was sitting nearby while this interview took place, Moloney revealed just how far her professional standards had developed since those college days in Dublin, where they also lived with ex-Irish Pies Aishling Sheridan and Muireann Atkinson.

"One day they were going to the gym, asked if I was going. They knew I'd never go, I had no interest, completely disliked the gym back there. But there I was, sitting on the couch just eating a pack of Taytos (potato chips/crisps), and they're heading off to the gym," Moloney said.

"I remember back then there was a sportsperson in the house, I won't mention any names, but he was just sagging me, saying 'you keep doing you'.

"The food has obviously come on a long way since then. Back in my college days, there used to be a local chipper, and I'd be hanging for a bag of chips and a burger. But my pre-game meal, the night before matches, was a kebab. It was pretty dirty.

"In my mind, I was like 'if I eat this kebab, I'll be pretty full'. I'm not a great eater the morning of a game, so that's the way I looked at it. I've come a long way, in fairness. I've grown a lot, I'm way different from my college days."