While you could call it a form of match-fixing, the organiser of this weekend’s annual Girls vs Boys Gaelic football match says it’s just about creating an even playing field.
Being held for the fifth year, tomorrow’s game’s a tie-breaker, with the girls and boys — forced to play wearing either gumboots or boxing gloves — having won two games each to date.
Queenstown Gaels president Lisa Whelan says forcing the blokes to don the cumbersome foot or handwear ensures the ladies have a ‘‘fighting chance’’.
‘‘I hate to admit it, but they tend to be bigger and stronger and faster than us, so it just gives us a bit of an advantage against them.’’
Given the aim of the game’s for players to score by kicking or punching the ball into the other team’s goal, or over a crossbar, having advanced up the field carrying, bouncing, kicking, hand-passing or ‘soloing’ — dropping it, then toe-kicking it upwards into the player’s hands — the gummies and gloves are genius additions.
Despite that, the boys won the last encounter, held in December, 2022.
Whelan: ‘‘We’re going pretty hard — we’ve got a great team of ladies this year, so we’re feeling pretty confident.’’
Providing further motivation is a former player the match is being dedicated to.
Former Queenstowner Emma McGuire joined the Queenstown Gaels in 2019 and quickly became an integral member of the club.
‘‘She was a really, really big part of who we were.
‘‘She was an amazing footballer — football was everything to her.’’
The former Skyline employee, who was in her 30s, played for the club for two years before becoming unwell, after which she returned to Ireland.
She sadly died of cancer on March 29 last year.
‘‘We were trying to think of something we could do to honour her, and one of her favourite things was the Girls vs Boys tournament.
‘‘She has a cousin here in Queenstown, he will be playing, and her other cousin lives in Australia and is flying over for it.’’
The club’s using the tournament as a fundraiser for the Milford Care Centre Limerick, in Ireland, the hospice which cared for Emma.
‘‘We’d love to see people come down and watch [the game], we’re just asking everyone give a donation, just whatever they can,’’ Whelan says.
Emma also ‘‘loved a good sesh’’ after a football game — that in mind, they’ll continue honouring her memory at Pog Mahone’s from about 3pm on Saturday.
Meantime, Whelan says the club, founded in 2018, is back in a growth phase after a challenging few years.
‘‘Covid was real tough on the club, we lost serious numbers, so we’re trying to claw our way back from that.’’
Tomorrow’s game, which will likely comprise two 20-minute halves, starts at the Queenstown Rec Ground at 1pm.
