Sinéad Aherne applauds Katie Taylor’s impact on women’s sport

Dublin star Sinéad Aherne has praised Katie Taylor’s influence on women’s sport, calling her a “great role model”.

Herne has played for Dublin since 2003 and has played in 11 All-Ireland Finals and won five. And in her time, she has seen major changes in women’s sport.

And with talk of Taylor defending her titles at Croke Park later this year after selling out at world-famous Madison Square Garden last weekend, Aherne believes the Bray fighter is raising the bar when it comes to what athletes expect Has.

“I think it’s phenomenal. I think the whole country is immensely proud of what she did over the weekend. She was a phenomenal athlete,” said Aherne.

“I suppose as a female athlete she is such a great role model to be represented the way she has been.

“Of course Rachael Blackmore has also done great things in the last year or so and even just the women’s rugby team has had so much talk, so much coverage of where the game is going and the sourcing of it. To see the passion they played with over the weekend, it was just a great weekend for women’s sport.

“To see this being covered and discussed to raise the standard of all sports that we are involved in, we as athletes wanted to have the resources and investment to be able to perform at our best.

“And going from where we came from, the scale has shifted in terms of what we expect as female athletes.

“We want to be invested. We want to be seen for our potential and if we’ve had these great sporting occasions there’s no reason why there can’t be so many more levels.”

Ahern missed Dublin’s easy Leinster Championship win over Westmeath last weekend with a hamstring injury but expects to be fully fit for the All-Ireland series. And despite turning 36 this year, she insists she had no intention of leaving Dublin in the off-season following last year’s All-Ireland final defeat by Meath.

“Of the older group there’s probably me and Lyndsey (Davey) who might have been a little more on the fence.

“For me, I was involved in the club championship until the end of January/February this year; The fact that I was still playing football was like a new season and I was enjoying it, I was injury free and that was important to me. It’s a challenge to get to the top of the pile and get back in the pack.”