Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire believes there is a genuine push within the AFL to create a 20th team for its women's competition made up of Irish players.
The connection between Ireland and AFLW has grown beyond what anyone could have hoped initially, with 39 players now scattered across the existing teams.
Five of those players made the 2025 All-Australian team, with Bláithín Bogue (North Melbourne), Jennifer Dunne (Brisbane), Niamh McLaughlin (Gold Coast), Áine McDonagh (Hawthorn) and Dayna Finn (Carlton) named amongst the game's best players.
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The AFL Women's competition ran its pre-season draft at the start of May, with two more Irish players selected.
It comes as an AFLW International Rules game between an Irish team and an Australian team is set to take place in June or July of 2026. While it might still be a hybrid of Aussie Rules and Gaelic football, it will be played with a Sherrin as opposed to a round ball.
The Swans have an Irish born coach, with ex men's player Colin O'Riordan holding the clipboard.
Once Tasmania enters the competition in 2028 as the 19th team, McGuire believes a Melbourne-based Irish team could quickly follow.
"As a result of the idea that an Irish team can play Australian football, last week I met with the new consul general of Ireland in Victoria for the first time, Marie-Claire Hughes, and the Irish ambassador in Canberra, Fiona Flood, and we were discussing this and it is now being discussed at AFL level and there is a genuine desire to put a 20th team into the AFLW competition when Tasmania comes in of an Irish team," McGuire told Nine's Footy Classified.
"We would have an Irish team. We're not playing in Ireland. It won't be a long away trip. They'll be based probably in Melbourne or maybe in Sydney.
"We the collective football world are looking at integrating an Irish team into the AFLW.
"At the moment, we have 39 active players and at the pre-season draft last week we had an Irish player go at picks three and seven.
"How would it work? Well if it works half as well as an Irish team playing in Scotland like the Glasgow Celtic (soccer club), you get serious passion at those games.
"At the moment in Australia there are 103,000 Irish born people. There's a further 27,000 temporary Irish visas and 2.4 per cent of the population are of Irish descent.
"Maybe (the team is called) the Melbourne Celtics."
This would likely impact the depth of talent of the competition, given Tasmania will have 30 players of its own, coupled with all of the Irish talent joining forces on one team.
If this happens in 2028, it would mean the AFLW competition will have jumped from eight teams to 20 in just 10 years.
The connection between Ireland and Australian Rules football goes back a long way.
The International Rules Series was played between the two nations annually between 1998 and 2006 in the men's competition, and has sporadically before and after that, mostly recently in 2017.
The AFL has recently expressed interest in revitalising the men's version of the series.
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