‘I still have years left with Meath’

THE 2021 Footballer of the Year Vikki Wall has insisted she has ‘a lot of years left’ playing for Meath despite her imminent move to the AFLW on a new contract with North Melbourne. She will see out this championship season first with Meath who are looking to defend their All-Ireland crown — and she didn’t rule out the prospect of juggling both sporting careers. ‘I have been playing with Meath since I was 16 and it is something that is such a huge part of my life and it’s definitely not something that I’m finished with yet. I think I hopefully have a lot of years left with me playing for Meath. As to trying to combine both? ‘Even this year you see some of the girls are back playing, Sinéad Goldrick and Rachel Kearns are back playing with their counties and then some others aren’t, so I suppose it’s just a conversation we’ll have going forward. I don’t know is the honest answer.’ Wall played down the impact of her loss to a Meath side that has taken the ladies football world by storm this past year. ‘At the moment we are trying to prove it is not a one-person show and I think that’s critical. I think if we were I don’t think we would have achieved anything. ‘Fingers crossed I will be playing for Meath for a number of years but the fact is we want it to be a place where there are new girls coming in every year that are challenging the people there already and thankfully that is happening at the moment. I think in previous years there wasn’t that challenge, if comfort can sneak into a team I don’t think it’s a good thing. So I’d like to believe the people we have coming up and the core group we have there is strong enough.’