‘Ambassador Ambrose’ – Limerick’s Róisín Ambrose plans big year on and off the field
By DAIRE WALSH
Limerick footballer Róisín Ambrose has said she considers it an honour to be asked to come on board as an LGFA ambassador for the very first time.
It was announced on Thursday that DFI Beds – Ireland’s largest online bedding retailer, which offers a wide range of mattresses, headboards and divan bases – is to become the official sleep partner of the Ladies Gaelic Football Association and Ambrose jumped at the opportunity to become an ambassador for this new initiative alongside Leitrim’s Charlene Tyrrell.
“This is my first time being an ambassador, there’s a first for everything! I was kind of honoured actually to be asked and that just shows the growth of women in sport and particularly in the LGFA,” Ambrose acknowledged.
“When I heard that DFI Beds were partnering up with the LGFA, I thought it really made a lot of sense.
“Sleep is very important for everyone’s general wellbeing, but I suppose as athletes and footballers, it’s very important for our recovery process and for even just having energy when we go out training or playing a match. It’s definitely something that I was interested in getting involved in.”
Joint captain with Monagea’s Yvonne Lee for the second successive season, Ambrose was in action last Saturday as a newly-promoted Limerick lost out to Down on a score of 0-14 to 2-6 at Mungret St Paul’s in the opening round of Division 3 in the Lidl National Football League.
While they came up just short to the Mourne County in the end, the Old Mill star was glad to be back amongst competitive fare following an extended bout of pre-season training and is now eagerly anticipating their second round clash with Wexford at Mick Neville Park in Rathkeale at 4pm on Sunday.
“It’s great to be back. We put down a tough month of training, but it’s nice to have matches week in and week out. Obviously it wasn’t the start that we wanted. Everyone wants to go out and win in their first game of the year, but we know that we have the beatings of these teams in Division Three.
“It’s our first year in Division Three, so it’s exciting for us. It’s a new challenge playing against a lot of teams that we haven’t come across before.”
Like Down, Limerick’s upcoming opponents Wexford will be operating in the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship later on this summer.
The Treaty have aspirations of moving up to this grade for 2026 and this would be achieved by emerging victorious in the TG4 All-Ireland junior football championship – a competition Ambrose previously won during her debut year as a Limerick panellist in 2018.
She was skipper when they lost out narrowly to Down in a 2023 junior showpiece at Croke Park and she admits the Munster outfit’s stated ambition for this year is to get their hands on the West County Hotel Cup once again.
“That’s our goal for this year. In the league we want to retain our Division Three status, but really we’ll be gunning for the junior championship. There’s no point denying it, we want to be there this year and we definitely want to be winning it,” Ambrose added.