Emma Costello thriving since returning to the Kingdom

In much the same way that her twin brother Jack Sherwood did at the end of the previous decade, Emma Costello is making the very most of her second stint as a Kerry senior footballer.

Having been part of the panel for their All-Ireland SFC success in 2014, Jack found himself outside of the Kingdom set-up in the wake of the following year's inter-county season.

He was subsequently recalled by Kerry men’s boss Peter Keane in 2019 and went on to appear off the bench in the drawn and replayed Sam Maguire Cup deciders against Dublin later on that summer.

His last appearance in the green and gold was in an All-Ireland semi-final encounter with Tyrone at Croke Park in August 2021, when the Munster giants were edged out by their Ulster counterparts after extra-time.

Sherwood’s sister had featured for Kerry in an All-Ireland Ladies Senior Football Championship final loss to provincial rivals Cork in 2012, but she also drifted away from the inter-county scene five years later. Yet just a few months after Jack’s time with the Kingdom came to an end, Emma found herself back in the saddle.

"My Mum last year, when I came back and Jack had finished up, she was like, 'one is out and you’re back in again!’ It was like one after the other again. She was like, ‘you’re just taking turns now at this stage!’ I hadn’t played since 2017, that summer. I was living in Dublin at that time, so I did two-and a-bit years commuting from Dublin," Costello recalled.

"I just was finding it very difficult, trying to balance work. I was kind of falling out of love with it, it was becoming more of a chore to me and I didn’t want that. That’s why I kind of finished in 2017.

"I honestly thought that was it, but we’ve moved since back to Kerry, just before Covid. I