Professional sport certainly has its allure, but the figure in the bank doesn’t trump all. A few weeks out from starting into her second season with AFLW side Collingwood, Kellyann Hogan is living what many would consider to be the sporting dream, and yet success with Waterford is still something that’s playing on her mind.Hogan didn’t go looking for a place in the AFLW – influenced by the likes of Cora Staunton and the great success stories of the “Irish experiment”. Instead, the Australian league came to her.“In 2024 I got a bit of interest from Australia, a few clubs had reached out and that kind of just got the ball rolling,” she recalls. “It was a fairly quick transition after that.”She signed with the Magpies ahead of the 2025 season, joining their ranks alongside fellow Irish recruits, Mayo’s Sarah Rowe and Monaghan’s Muireann Atkinson.“They couldn’t have been any better to me,” she says of her two new team-mates. “They literally took me under their wing. It was nice to have the two of them, they just kind of lead me through it.“At the start, I was hopping a million questions off them. The two girls were nearly better than the Australians for answering questions because they had been through the learning of the sport so recently.”‘Recently’ is a relative term. Rowe has been with Collingwood since 2019 and is now a stalwart at the club. Atkinson, meanwhile, is just a year ahead of Hogan in her AFLW career.“It definitely did take a while to get used to it,” says the 24-year-old. Although Aussie Rules is similar in style to Gaelic football, the specifics of the game require a bit of unlearning on the part of Irish players, having to do away with some of their Gaelic tendencies.A key difference in the Australian code is the emphasis on keeping the ball moving forward. “You almost don’t have time to pick out a pass,” Hogan explains. “If you are waiting around to pick out a pass, you’re going to get hit.”Kellyann Hogan of the Magpies is seen injured during the 2025 AFLW match between the Carlton Blues and the Collingwood Magpies. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty It’s a lesson she learned the hard way. Within a month of joining Collingwood, she took a knock and got a concussion, sidelining her for two weeks. But having got back in time for a preseason training camp, she was ready to go for their opening round fixture away to Carlton, only to suffer a shoulder injury that required surgery.Although frustrated to be out of action once again, “those six weeks were probably the most beneficial for me because I was constantly watching games,” she admits, getting to sit in on player meetings for various positions which helped her further her understanding of the sport.“I think it just came at the perfect time. When I came back in, I was just mad to get back into games and I was buzzing. In round one I was like a rabbit in the headlights, it was so overwhelming, but once I had those six weeks to catch my breath and just learn the game, I found when I came back in, I was in a way better spot.”But injury misfortune would strike yet again, this time an MCL injury in the closing minutes of their round 10 match against Richmond in October. It ruled her out for their last two games, bringing an end to her rookie season having made four appearances for the Pies.At the close of the AFLW calendar, many Irish players returned home in order to play intercounty during the Australian off-season. However, it was a fine balancing act that looks set for extinction as the AFLW has expanded its season.Kellyann Hogan of Waterford celebrates kicking a point. Photograph: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile Hogan’s initial arrival at Collingwood came just days after she had lined out for Waterford in the 2025 Munster final, which ended in a two-point defeat to Kerry. Her move Down Under saw her miss the remainder of the Déise’s intercounty season, but this time around she had permission from the club to see the championship through to the bitter end.“[Collingwood] were brilliant, letting me play the whole [intercounty] season. I think they just knew it would have been the best thing from my head, and I was just mad to play the full season with Waterford having not being able to do it last year.”“Obviously, it didn’t go to plan,” she adds. Waterford suffered another Munster final defeat to the Kingdom, this time by a point, before losses to Armagh and Cork in Group 1 left them facing a relegation qualifier against Donegal on July 4th. Win, and their senior status will be safe; lose, and they’ll go to a relegation playoff against either Tipperary or Tyrone where the defeated county will drop down to intermediate next season.Right now, all Hogan’s focus is on getting a win against Donegal to guarantee Waterford are in the top tier for 2027. Only then will she switch back into Aussie Rules mode, seeing out the second year of her contract with Collingwood. What comes after that, she’ll play it by ear.“At the moment, I feel like there is unfinished business [with Waterford]. Losing two Munster finals in two years by tiny margins, you’d love to get over the line.“We’re getting a taste of being in finals now. It’s so hard to leave it, you just want to win for your county. I would love to win a Munster final and potentially go further than that.”