HER PARTNER may be a member of one of Australia’s most famous football families, but it’s Sarah Rowe who gets all the attention in Ireland.
Collingwood AFLW midfielder Rowe took partner Scott Selwood, himself a former AFL player for West Coast and Geelong, back to her native Ireland over Christmas.
While the AFL hasn’t quite taken off in its own right in the Emerald Isle, the influx of Irish players into the AFLW competition means there’s a fair degree of interest in what the country’s exports are up to Down Under.
With Scott’s brother Joel one of the AFL’s most decorated players, it’s usually the Selwood surname that gets attention in Australia, but when the pair spent time in County Mayo, it was well and truly the Rowe show.
“[Scott] was disappointed he wasn’t recognised in Ireland,” Rowe joked, tongue-in-cheek.
“He was like ‘they’ll probably know who I am’ and I was like ‘I don’t think they have any idea, I don’t think they know anything about your career a couple of years ago’.
“I told him if he made a big enough impression, people would talk about him when he left.”
A multi-talented athlete, Rowe has played soccer, Gaelic football and AFLW at the highest levels.
After representing Ireland in soccer, the next chapter of her Rowe’s international sporting career will start on Saturday when she lines up for Ireland in the AFLW’s representative footy clash against Australia.
For Rowe, the Australia v Ireland game presents a serendipitous occasion to merge the two halves of her footy world. She even declared she’d find a way to get Scott’s nephews into Ireland guernseys for the match.
“[Scott] will 100 per cent be going for Ireland, as will all the Selwoods. His mum and dad are flying up for the game as well,” she said.
“We’ll have to get them in green jerseys.
“It’ll be really special because it’ll bring my family and his family together.
“My dad will definitely be here, and then my sister and her fiance are living in Sydney now as well so they’ll be there. My school friends are all living in Sydney as well so there’s so many Irish people that will be there.”
In addition to Rowe’s family in the crowd, there’ll be plenty of familiar faces - and former foes - suiting up with her in the Irish team, including her former housemate Aishling Moloney (Geelong) and old teammate Vikki Wall (North Melbourne).
With the battlelines of the GAA competition removed, the game also presents an opportunity for Rowe to play alongside some former rivals in Sinead Goldrick (Melbourne) and Aine McDonagh (Hawthorn).
“When Aishling Moloney and I played in college together, it was just eye contact. I knew where she was going to move, she knew where I wanted to kick the ball,” Rowe said.
“There’s this chemistry I feel like we’ve had from playing together for years, so I’m excited about that aspect of the game.
“There’s Vikki Wall, who played on my team in college and I can’t wait to play with her.
“There’s also Sinead Goldrick, who I played against at home. When we played Dublin v Mayo, we hated each other. But since we’ve come out here we’ve actually become really good friends because we’ve needed to lean on each other more than ever and a lot of us Irish players do.
“Aine McDonagh is one of my closest friends now as well. Again, we played against each other and were absolute rivals, we hated each other for years. Then we came out to Australia and were like ‘oh well, we’re going to need each other out here’.
“I think that’s the thing: It’s actually brought a lot of us together, whereas in Ireland if you play on a different team to girls in different counties, you really don’t like them. We’re so competitive and have so much white-line fever that we’re almost angry towards each other.
“So I think bringing it all together now and being able to play with those girls will be amazing.”
