Like too many other football-crazy little girls, Kate Sheahan was told her footy career was over at the ripe old age of 12.
Devastated, she swapped her big red, oval-shaped ball for a fuzzy little green one and channeled her energies into playing tennis.
She’s made a career as a tennis coach, but Sheahan — whose dad is veteran sports journalist Mike Sheahan — never forgot the first game she loved.
Fast forward to 2017, and on Saturday night the 35-year-old mother-of-one made her debut in Round 4 of the inaugural AFL Women’s season.
It was a dream, years in the making, and it lasted right up until the Collingwood rookie’s first touch of the football.
Missed it? Here’s what went down in Round 4:
“I took the ball and felt right at home. I saw two Dogs players ahead and remembered Wayne telling us to use the boundary when kicking into the wind. So I decided to turn the opponent inside out and planted my left leg and went to change direction. BANG. My knee gave way. It snapped,” Sheahan wrote in a column for the Herald Sun yesterday.
“This surge of pain ran through my body and I went down like I had been shot, but to be honest that’s how it felt. I remember screaming: “My knee, my knee.”
“The look on the medico’s face said it all. I wanted so badly to get up. But I simply couldn’t.”
Doctors later confirmed she had an ACL tear. Her dream was over.
Top Comments
Ugh star is hardly the word I'd use for Kate Sheahan. She wasn't even good enough to get picked until round 4. Riding her daddy's coattails though, her AFL media career is set for life now after 4 minutes on the field.
Looking forward to the writeups on every other player sidelined this season by injuries - expecting to see some stories around some true footy players who I'd actually call 'stars'.