Pearce Hanley: ‘It’s my only opportunity to get among the best footballers in Ireland’

"HEARTBREAKING”. Pearce Hanley has no better way of describing Mayo’s close-run All-Ireland finals these last four years.

Of course, he’s imagined himself there. Of course, he’s considered the possibility he might have made a difference had he stayed at home instead of developing a successful AFL career over the past decade.

Regardless, Queensland’s sun-kissed Gold Coast is where he calls home now, “a house on the beach” to be a little more precise. It’s where he earns a living and where, to put it bluntly, he is paid to play ball.