Vikki Wall: 'I'm definitely not done playing for Meath'

The thing is, just 27 days after Meath play Kerry at Croke Park, Wall will be in line to make her AFLW debut for the North Melbourne Kangaroos and once she picks up the oval ball, well, who knows when she'll put it down.

Fri, 29 Jul, 2022 - 06:00

Paul Keane

All Vikki Wall can say for certain is that Sunday's All-Ireland ladies football final won't be her last dance with Meath.

"I'm definitely not done playing for Meath yet," assured the reigning Footballer of the Year. "I don't have a definite plan but yeah, I'm definitely not done playing for Meath yet."

Meath manager Eamonn Murray suggested earlier this week that the Dunboyne All-Star will 'probably turn into the face of ladies AFL, I presume that's the idea'.

If that happens, and with the AFLW increasingly moving towards a full-time professional basis, it could be some time before Wall does pull on the green and gold again.

The new August start for the Australian game means that teams will wrap up before Christmas, potentially clearing the likes of Wall to play for their counties in the National League?

"I don't have an answer for that at the moment," said Wall. "I don't know what my plan is at the moment to be honest.

"I'm not thinking that far ahead. I'm literally solely focused on the 31st, that's my priority at the moment."

What if there's an All-Ireland final replay?

"I'll be here, don't you worry, I'll be here no matter what happens," said Wall.

Wall's importance to Meath is clear though perhaps it was a good sign that they performed so strongly in the 10 minutes when she was in the sin-bin late in the All-Ireland semi-final defeat of Donegal.

The scores were level when she was shown yellow for sliding into a collision with Nicole McLaughlin, apparently tipping the scales in Donegal's direction though Meath outscored them by 0-3 to 0-1 from there on. Responding strongly to adversity has been a theme of their season.

"We definitely rise to the challenge," said Wall. "I don't know if you'd say we play our best football under pressure like that though. We've also had some very good performances where we haven't been behind or chasing the game. But it's a good sign that when the pressure is on we can react."

Wall shrugged at the suggestion that it was a tough call to send her to the sin bin.

"Once you're off the pitch, I've never seen a referee change their mind in those kinds of scenarios."

She would like more physicality to be allowed in the game though.

"Absolutely. The fact that we are putting in so much time to our strength and conditioning throughout the entire year, it's probably a pity that we can't utilise it a bit more. We've seen a lot of changes over the past few years, even in camogie physicality-wise, so it would be good to see the LGFA following suit on that."

Interestingly, boss Murray doesn't agree.

"No, I wouldn't have it (in the game), it's called ladies for a reason," said Murray.

They both agree that Kerry will present a unique challenge.

"We've played Kerry once or twice the last few years and we know the calibre that they have up front," said Wall.

"But then they have a huge strength in the backs too, you saw the likes of Kayleigh Cronin the last day making great blocks. So whilst they're scoring up one end, they're also defending well at the other end. Look, there are challenges from Kerry all over the pitch to be honest and we have a huge respect for them as a football team."

Signing off with back to back All-Ireland wins would place Wall among an elite category of players.

"That's never really the driving motivation," she maintained. "There are so many more motivations and driving factors and hunger within this team than thinking of back to back and things like that. I definitely don't think that's our driving factor but obviously it would be a nice thing to do, 100%, yeah."