Orla O'Dwyer recalls her first ladies football game with Tipperary club Boherlahan. She asked to be a sub.
"I didn't want to play," she explains on the Electric Ireland
"I wanted to sit on the sidelines. I had no confidence in myself."
More than a decade on, those confidence levels have soared. O'Dwyer has played camogie and football up to senior level with Tipperary, captaining the camogie team as an 18-year-old, and featuring in the 2021 All-Ireland camogie semi-final against Galway. Two years earlier, she was on the Tipperary side which won the All-Ireland Ladies Football Intermediate Championship.
Also, for the past three years, she has been part of the Brisbane Lions AFLW side. Last year, she became the first Irish player since Jim Stynes to be named to an All-Australian team.
O'Dwyer grew up playing Gaelic games on boys' teams with Rosegreen and theorises it may have knocked her self-belief on the pitch. After under-12, she moved to play camogie with Cashel and football with Boherlahan.
'I finally got on those Tipperary A teams'
"Growing up, I didn't show much interest in GAA itself," she says.
"I think it was first or second class, I was the smallest in my class. I was the weakest. Mam threw me into under-8s with the boys in Rosegreen. I got into it. I just didn't enjoy it. I felt they were too rough, I wasn't strong enough, no one passed the ball. I didn't want the ball. I had no skill.
"It's crazy, those couple of years I didn't enjoy it, we were going to the field and all my friends were there. I felt it was just part of my life.
"It wasn't until I moved to Cashel Camogie Club, and played with just girls, that I realised I wasn't as bad as I thought I was. From then on, I got a bit stronger, a bit more skilful, grew a bit when I was about 12 or 13.
"I always say to my parents that if they didn't keep bringing me to the field, I don't know where I'd be."
29 August 2021; Orla O'Dwyer of Tipperary in action against Siobhán Gardiner of Galway during the All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship Semi-Final match between Tipperary and Galway at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
From under-14 to under-16, she was part of the Tipperary squads, though never on the A team. "I was always a B or C player," says O'Dwyer.
"It wasn't until under-16 that I focused on it more, and did a lot of development, and worked on my skills and kept getting bigger and stronger.
"I finally got on those A teams. I played camogie and football U16, and up along to minor and through to senior. Once I was on the teams from a young age, I kept going. I did the two of them up along for as long as I could."
In 2016, she won All-Ireland minor A camogie and minor B ladies football titles with Tipperary.
Saturday, April 25th 2015, All-Ireland Minor A Camogie Championship final Kilkenny vs Tipperary. Tipperary's Orla O'Dwyer is consoled by Roisin Howard after the game. Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Ken Sutton
"It's probably one of my most memorable games. We played Galway," she recalls about the camogie final.
"That first bit of proper success and experience of winning an All-Ireland final was great.
"It was just such a special group. The year before, we lost the minor final. It was the same group, the same bunch of girls, the same management. It was just so special that day. I was the age where I was old enough to realise what an All-Ireland final actually was, and how much it actually means.
"We all performed well that day. It was a tough game. It's funny, looking back the game I remember the most is a minor one.
"Our football one, when we won minor B, our best player at the time, Ash Moloney, got sin-binned for 10 minutes. We thought we had it lost, 'That it's, it's over'. We just came back, got back into it with 14 players, then she came back on. We all just kept going and won the game in the end.
"That was another special time. You're going through a lot of stuff together. You might be doing the Leaving Cert together. Everyone is so excited, they want to get onto a senior team, all want to excel.
"You're that bit older, you might be driving to training on your own or you might go with a couple of girls. It's just a real good atmosphere, a real good social time as well."
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