Róisín Phelan's 'new lease of life' with Aghada now the sole focus

As she gets set to feature in Aghada's first-ever Senior 'A’ championship final at MTU on Sunday afternoon, former Cork star Róisín Phelan has said that getting a chance to focus solely on club football in 2024 has proven to be ‘a breath of fresh air’.

Having first arrived on the scene as a teenager in 2012, Phelan officially announced her inter-county retirement in March of this year. She had previously taken a break from the Rebelettes squad in 2019 - when she was working in Dublin and lining out for the Castleknock-based St Brigid’s.

Yet when she last donned the red of Cork in a All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Dublin in July 2023, Phelan was back playing club football with Aghada and working locally at Corabbey Dental & Orthodontics in Midleton. The 2018 All-Star was subsequently eager to continue togging out for Aghada in the wake of stepping away from the county panel and will proudly lead out the side as captain in their top-tier showdown with Éire Óg this weekend.

"It has been a breath of fresh air really. I guess I played inter-county for an awfully long time and the body starts to creek a little bit after a while. When you come back into club football after playing inter-county all year, you feel like you’re permanently attached to the physio bed," Phelan explained.

"It has been nice. A bit more relaxed this year and I think it has given my body a new lease of life. I’m feeling pretty good. There’s great excitement in and around the parish. It’s the first senior ‘A’ final that our club has been involved in, in any code. It’s a proud day for the parish."

Considering she had been a part of the set-up for so long, Phelan admitted it wasn’t an easy decision to call time on her inter-county career with Cork. That