Costello's class endures for Kerry footballers

By John Harrington

If Emma Costello can win an All-Ireland medal with the Kerry ladies football team on Sunday at the age of 35, it will be a triumph of perseverance and good planning.

She had lots of reasons not to commit to the cause again this year.

Her job as a pharmacist is a busy one, her husband Brian has his own football commitments as a coach with the Kerry minor ladies team and John Mitchels senior men’s team, and the number one priority for both of them is their two-year-old daughter Mollie.

But when it came to deciding whether to commit or not to the cause again for 2026, she couldn’t help but feel there was some unfinished business.

She’d lost All-Ireland Finals in 2022 and 2023, missed out on Kerry’s 2024 success when she was pregnant with Mollie, and then was part of a team that underperformed when losing to Meath in last year’s semi-final.

“Last year the Meath game didn't go so well, so there was probably still an itch just to see if we could improve on that,” Costello told GAA.ie

“But obviously we had to make sure that logistically it would work out too, so there was a lot of planning for a couple of months to see if we were able to do it.

“We thought about it together to just see if we could manage it, especially with Brian involved with teams as well. I'm so happy that it's worked out and we're able to do it.

“Definitely very busy, lots of logistics at the start of the week, and plenty, plenty of help. Plenty of babysitters, plenty of help from the grandparents, from my husband, and anyone else who's free.

“My brother has two little small fellas too, so sometimes the three cousins are shipped together, so everything helps.

“It's busy, the weekends especially are very busy. Mollie’s in the car a lot, and she's passed from here to there, but it's great that the two of us can manage it as well.

“Mollie kind of knows what's going on now, she can say mommy is a Kerry footballer.

“It's great to be able to bring her to the games and get her in her jersey and all that. In time, she'll know how cool it was, I suppose.”

In a way, this is Costello’s third coming as a Kerry footballer.

She made her debut back in 2010 as a teenager when she was Emma Sherwood, but after moving to Meath the toll of travelling to and from Kerry for matches eventually proved too much and she stepped away in 2017.

She and Brian moved back to Kerry in 2022 and she was immediately called back up to the county panel.

You’d imagine that having lost All-Ireland Finals in 2022 and 2023 it must have been tough to miss out on Kerry’s victory in 2024, but Costello only felt joy that day in Croke Park.

She was 36 weeks pregnant with Mollie at the time and had made peace with the fact her own inter-county career was over so felt only pride that her friends and former team-mates had reached the promised land.

It turned out though that the final chapter of her own footballing story hadn’t been written just yet.

“At the time I thought I was finished and I was just so proud of them that day, and just so happy that we finally did it.

“There's a lot of players it took to get there, do you know what I mean? There's a lot of players that have gone through the Kerry system that didn't get to an All-Ireland Final.

“It was just so, so much work gone for years and years to get there, so I was just so proud of them. I didn't know I'd be back after that again, to be honest. It was a call from Mark (Bourke) that kind of changed that.

“I suppose knowing I'm definitely getting closer to the end, you're just trying to keep fighting as much as you can now.

“There's such a fabulous bunch of girls there, there always is, but there's just a fabulous bunch and a fabulous atmosphere there at the moment, and it's hard not to want to keep playing. Once you're in it's hard to step away, and it keeps pulling you back.”

It’s a testament to Costello’s quality that she’s still such a central figure for this Kerry team at the age of 35. The game at the highest level is a very different one now than it was when she made her debut in 2010, but she still has the athleticism and footballing nous to thrive.

“It’s changed massively,” says Costello. “Aside from the rules obviously, the new rules this year, but it's just the professionalism, the standards, the level of competitiveness, everything has changed.

“Obviously there was always fighting for a team, and there was always work rate and all that, but I just feel like the physicality has gone through the roof. The fitness, the athletic ability of people, it's just phenomenal at the moment.

“The way we're training and the way girls put it in week per week, and we could be out five days a week, and it takes a lot of time. There's a group of girls now, the younger girls, and it's amazing that that level of competitiveness and that standard is all that they know.

“That's the way we want it to be and we want it in another ten years to be up again. You want it to keep evolving and keep growing. It's great to see it and it's great to be able to keep pushing ourselves and keep pushing the standards across the board. It's fabulous.”

Costello wouldn’t still be playing so well at the highest level if she wasn’t a born competitor.

The game has changed a lot but she loves pushing herself to her limit in order to rise to he challenge.

“Oh definitely," she says. "You see girls who are probably closer in age to Mollie than me on the team and it's great to be able to push myself and just see that I can still do it.

“Obviously I take a lot longer to recover and things like that now, but you just push yourself to see where you can go I suppose. I'm delighted that the body is still going okay at the moment anyway.”

Costello still has the natural athleticism to compete with women 10 or more years younger than her, but she also feels like the experience accrued over the course of her career allows her to add value in other ways.

“I definitely don't get as nervous as I used to and my preparation is very consistent," she says.

“I like the same routine, I go to bed early, all these things that, I suppose I've zoned in on a lot of that stuff. You just know what suits you and what doesn't suit you more so I suppose.

“I'm glad then to help some of the younger girls too. If they're maybe a bit more nervous you can kind of have a bit of craic with them and try to lighten the mood.

“I feel that I can maybe bring that to the table too. Because I'm not getting as nervous as others I'm able to maybe lighten the mood across the board or just bring different elements to it that you maybe didn't have before.”

Kerry bring a lot of momentum into Sunday’s Final against Galway after following up a 12-point victory over Meath in the quarter-finals with a 10-point win over Dublin in the semi-finals.

Timing counts for a lot in sport, and it looks like the Kingdom have timed their run to perfection.

“Yeah, I do feel like we're improving,” says Costello.

“Since probably the Cork game in the Munster Championship we've been improving every game. I suppose that's so important, that there's always learnings every game.

“I think that's a big thing this year, that we're not sitting back. We're just constantly looking at areas that we can improve. I do think that game by game the trajectory is good.

“I think the new rules suit us. Especially the solo and go, it's keeping the pace of the game so high.

“And obviously the three up, it gives the inside forwards probably a bit more space than they had in the last couple of years

“The game has completely changed, but all for the better. If you get two or three quick passes up, into the forward line, and you get Siofra (O’Shea) at the end of it, sure it's brilliant.

"Every team is really using the new rules and it's all for the better of the game. It's improving the whole time.”

What would it mean to Costello if she could finally win an All-Ireland Senior Championship 16 years after making her debut for the Kingdom?

“Oh, it would mean the world,” she says. “Like, I've been playing for Kerry now, for a long time, and, it would mean a lot just to be able to show Mollie, that her mom has done it.

“That would be lovely.”