By Daire Walsh

While the achievements of this year are still very fresh in her mind, Roscommon’s Aisling Feely is eagerly anticipating the prospect of playing senior championship football in 2027.

Courtesy of their emphatic 2-12 to 0-6 triumph over Fermanagh in the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship decider at Croke Park on August 2, the Rossies will be one of 12 counties to feature in the top-tier of the LGFA next summer. Even before taking part in the race for the Brendan Martin Cup, the primrose and blue will lock horns with newly-crowned All-Ireland senior winners Galway and Mayo in next year’s Connacht championship at the highest grade of ladies football.

This will help to make it a three-team series out in the west once again, as it was when the previous season’s All-Ireland intermediate champions Leitrim made the brief step up to senior football in 2025, and Feely is excited about this new opportunity for Roscommon.

“We saw Leitrim do it two years ago. We would have been always there or thereabouts with them. They knocked us out in the quarter-final that year by two points and they went on to win it. That kind of gave us a bit of inspiration. If Leitrim can do it, why can’t we. We’re just as good. To get up to senior is absolutely massive,” Feely acknowledged.

“The talent is definitely there. It’s our job now to push that on and a big emphasis next year will be on not being a yo-yo team. We’re up now, we took that opportunity. It’s our job to impose ourselves up there and make sure we stay there for definite.”

Given they were appearing at the venue for the first time since 2001, there might have been a fear Roscommon would find life difficult in this year's intermediate decider against a Fermanagh side who had far greater experience of lining out in Croke Park.

However, as Feely explained, a trip to GAA HQ on the day before the final helped to put them at ease. The Boyle attacker in particular took to her new surroundings like a duck to water as she contributed an outstanding tally of 2-2 from full-forward.

“There was always the fear of the first time in Croke Park. That that could have spooked us. Some girls had only been there for concerts, so it was definitely a new environment. I think everyone just took it in their stride. We actually visited Croke Park the day before, we did a bit of a tour.

“I thought that could either go one way or the other. You’re either going to scare yourself or it was going to motivate you. Definitely coming out of Croke Park, with everyone you could sense there was something special on the cards for the next day.

“Obviously when you’re visualising the game in the build-up and you’re thinking about it every day up to the game and dreaming about it, I don't think I could have envisaged a better outcome than kicking 2-2. It’s just the cherry on top of a win. It was a great day for everyone.”

Despite establishing herself as a regular starter during her debut season on the Roscommon panel in 2023, Feely subsequently endured her fair share of frustration. After suffering a medial collateral ligament injury in a third round Lidl National Football League Division 3 encounter with Clare on February 11, 2024, she spent close to two months on the sidelines.

She eventually returned to start against the same county in an NFL Division 3 final at Grant Heating St Brendan’s Park in Birr on April 6 of that year, but after being forced off with just 13 minutes on the clock, it emerged she had damaged her anterior cruciate ligament and suffered a grade three MCL tear - in addition to sustaining two tears in her meniscus.

It was a long road back from there to becoming a major part of the Roscommon set-up once again, but with 3-26 to her name across just five outings in the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship this year, Feely has now left her injury troubles behind her.

“I’ve no issues with it even psychologically. I was kind of afraid maybe, even though my knee might be 100% right, my head mightn’t be fully there and I’d be afraid to throw myself into a tackle or put myself in those vulnerable knee positions.

“Thankfully I don’t think about it at all anymore. Those long evenings in the gym, I never thought this day would come where I’d be playing in Croke Park. Looking back now, it has definitely all been worth it. You have so many lows like that, but that makes the good days even better.”

What makes Feely's recent success with Roscommon all the more rewarding is the fact she initially hadn’t planned to play inter-county football in 2026. Having opted against rejoining the panel last year after she had returned from injury to line out with Boyle at club level (she was also away on work placements for her science course in UCD), Feely had her sights set on travelling in the USA this year.

Yet when those particular plans fell through, she returned to the Rossies senior squad and saw her first piece of competitive inter-county action in almost two years when she appeared as a substitute against Laois in Division 3 of the Lidl National Football League on March 1.

“My original intention this year was to do a bit of travelling in America in the summer. I kind of had told Finbar [Egan] that I wouldn’t be coming back this year. That kind of fell through and to be fair when it fell through, they welcomed me back into the squad with open arms in the middle of the league,” Feely added.

“They could have easily just said ‘you didn’t do the pre-season, you haven’t been here through the tough times, we don’t want you back’. Thankfully they all welcomed me back with open arms. The minute I got back, I realised I really did miss it. We’re just such a tight knit group and I definitely would have regretted my decision not to come back this year.”

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