Bríd Stack returning to AFLW: ‘I wanted to give it one more shot. I have everyone’s blessing now’

Bríd Stack’s dream move to the Greater Western Sydney Giants quickly turned into a nightmare after she sustained a neck fracture in a pre-season game last January. Despite being within millimetres of paralysis, Stack’s desire to play professionally remains as powerful as ever — and it is why she plans to return to Australia next month

Bríd Stack: ‘I took everyone’s thoughts and feelings into consideration but at the end of it all, I had to make that decision for myself. I wanted to go back and give it one more shot.’ Picture: Dan Linehan

Three days after Bríd Stack returned from Australia in June, she was flicking through the TV channels when she stumbled upon an old episode of the TV show ‘DIY SOS’ on BBC1, where Nick Knowles performs the same lead role as Baz Ashmawy does on the Irish version of the show.

Knowles and his team set out to renovate a house in Avening so that Ben Wernham could return to his family home in the Cotswold’s. Wernham had suffered a life-changing accident in 2016; after slipping while walking alongside a pool in Spain and landing in the shallow end, Wernham broke his neck in three places, which left him paralysed from the neck down.