'It drives me mad': Ailish Considine on the state of women's football

Ailish Considine reckons the GAA and LGFA can learn from Aussie Rules when it comes to promoting women's football.

Considine is back playing football with Clare after her successful time in Australia, where she won two Premiership titles with Adelaide.

From playing in front of huge crowds to televised coverage, the 32-year-old was hugely impressed by how Australia promoted the AFLW.

With the number of Irish players in the AFLW increasing annually, Considine hopes the GAA can learn from the Australian model.

"They have done such a great job over in Australia promoting the games and having them on free-to-air all the time, so I think certainly on the scheduling side of things, they can pick up a few tips from the AFL.

"They are quite similar cultures - the GAA and AFL - people love their footy over there, and we love our GAA here. There are a few things you can learn from the AFL."

Now back playing football with Clare, Considine admitted her frustration at returning to the same problems in the game that existed years ago.

"It drives me mad, to be honest, especially the pitches. I really expect that county games should be played on county grounds.

"It is something so small and probably so minute to the GAA that they don't even realise it's such a big deal for us.

"It gives the game a bit more status when you have it in county grounds, but I don't think we played a league game this year in Cusack Park or Páirc Chíosóg, which is unfortunate because we played most of our games there last year.

"There probably were just clashes this year between the GAA and LGFA. But it's something that can be worked on. Hopefully, the merger will happen soon enough, and that will help with the scheduling issues.

"It's something you can learn