Dublin's late bloomer Jessica Tobin not derailed by injury or competition

Dublin's Jessica Tobin is relishing the opportunity to shine at senior level despite never previously representing the county at underage grades.

Since her introduction to inter-county football at the age of 26, Tobin has been making up for lost time, even allowing for an injury that wiped out last season, and has found her path to the starting team via the development squad.

"Late enough coming on to the scene, I had been for trials at underage and just didn't really perform at them, I wasn’t successful gettingon to any teams then," Tobin told RTÉ Sport of her.

"But in the last few years Dublin have set up in a way that they have a development team, so they had a few trainings there before Christmas at the end of the 2021 season and I was asked along to that and from there on to the panel."

Tobin isn’t the only player to find her way through the development panel as several current and former panel members also got their inter-county start in a similar manner -including her Cuala team-mate Sinead Wylde, who accompanied Tobin to the development sessions after previously focusing on camogie.

She described the move as a "jump in terms of volume of training and intensity of things", but she quickly found her feet as she became a regular in the starting 15, including the 2022 Leinster final in Croke Park.

However, Dublin failed to progress past the All-Ireland quarter-finalstage as they fell short against Donegal.

An ACL tear derailed her 2023 season however she remained around the squad and rehabilitated her injury. She commends the commitment and work ethic of the squad and management team as Dublin beat title favourites Kerry to win the All-Ireland.

"The league was pretty rough, and I suppose there was a lot of learning was done