Fox is hopeful of better things from Galway WFC in the season ahead

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

GALWAY WFC kick-off their competitive season with a National League fixture against 2017 FAI Cup winners Cork City at Éamonn Deacy Park this Sunday (2pm) and defender Shauna Fox has high hopes for the campaign ahead.

Although just 21 years of age, Fox is one of the more experienced heads having featured prominently for Salthill Devon and Castlebar Celtic at underage before joining Galway WFC in 2014.

Since then, Fox, also an accomplished camogie player and Gaelic ladies’ footballer, has worn the green of the Republic of Ireland at senior level against Wales in 2016 and last year was part of the Irish students’ side that competed in the World University Games in Taipei.

Fox’s story, however, is all the more remarkable as she has only 4% vision in her left eye yet it has by no means detracted from plying her trade at an elite level. “It just happened that up through the years I started losing vision in it and, I suppose, I don’t really know much different,” she remarks.

For its part, Galway WFC is still an infant and Fox agrees it does take time for a club, especially one operating at an elite level, to find its feet. “That is fair to say. I mean, it takes a lot for a club to get up and running as it is and then you have to try to keep a core group of people together year in, year out.

“If you can do that, it is obviously going to help. We are bringing 10 or 12 players into this season who were there last year and I think that is going to stand to us. So, it is sticking together as a team.

“I also think it is a positive as well that we have Billy (Clery, manager) back again this season and that we are not changing it up too much. That is also important,” says Fox, who is in her third and final year studying Youth and Family Studies at NUI Galway.

At any rate, Fox and company will be looking to improve this season on last year’s showing, which saw them finish second from bottom in the seven-team league.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.