By Daire Walsh

IT wasn’t something she had necessarily envisaged, but late bloomer Tara Rogers will forever cherish winning an AIB All-Ireland intermediate club football championship title with Cavan’s Knockbride in 2025.

Three weeks ago Rogers started at midfield as Knockbride recorded a commanding 3-10 to 0-4 triumph over Caltra Cuans of Galway in the All-Ireland IFC decider at Croke Park. Whereas a sizable number of their panel have many seasons of football behind them, Rogers is a relative newcomer to adult club football.

Despite featuring for a short while at juvenile level, it wasn’t until 2021 that the now 26-year-old became a regular playing member of Knockbride. The Covid-19 pandemic was still having a significant impact during this time, but Rogers ultimately decided it was an ideal opportunity to try something new.

“It wasn’t really my dream [to win an All-Ireland] because I didn’t play football, but I tell you something, I’d love to do it again. Because when I started playing, one of the managers who was over us at the time, Ado Carroll said ‘come on, would you join for a bit of craic? You can come out with us and all that’,” Rogers recalled.

“I said ‘you know what, I love a night out, I’ll join!’ I did play a bit underage and I stopped then. I suppose for a lot of young girls, when you hit 15, 16, you’re in TY and you want to do all these other things.

“We were after having Covid and I suppose I was fed up with sitting at home then. I was 21 and I said ‘You know what? It will get me back out, it will get me healthier’. In 2017, I was actually in hospital for a long time with a heart condition. So I said ‘look it, this might actually help me a little bit’. I was just going back and doing a little bit of training. I didn’t think I was near a starting team or anything like that, but I just stuck at it.”

It comes as little surprise that Rogers caught the Gaelic football bug as it is a sport that runs through her family. Her uncle Raphael Rogers had played inter-county football for Cavan in the past, while her aunt Carmel Rogers did likewise and was named Cavan ladies footballer of the year in 2002.

This family pedigree remains strong today as Tara had a plethora of cousins on the Knockbride panel for last month’s All-Ireland success. In addition to her first cousins Katie, Nicola and Aoife Rogers being on the starting team, she is also the same relation to Gia McCabe (a goalscorer from right half-forward against Caltra) and substitute Diane Donohoe.

Additionally, she is also second cousin to Amie Lynch and Ellen Lynch, who played starring roles in defence at GAA HQ on December 13. Suffice to say, this made a special day out on Jones’ Road all the more memorable for Tara and those closest to her.

“I suppose football is in my family. My brother goes out with the captain. My other brother goes out with another player as well. It’s a big family affair. My father was chairman of the club for seven or eight years. My mother, years and years ago, used to be a part of the club as well. She still washes the jerseys now.

“We’re so tight. I’m absolutely delighted with the win, but to look up into the stand in Croke Park and see tears in everyone’s eyes. My grandfather said to me ‘I didn’t think I’d be in Croke Park again. Let alone seeing my five granddaughters start on a winning All-Ireland team in Croke Park’. It’s nice for us, but it’s unbelievable for them.”

Knockbride’s All-Ireland success last year is all the more remarkable when you consider they just about managed to retain their intermediate championship status in Cavan during the same year Rogers started playing for them. Yet the club had previously thrived at the top grade in the county a number of years ago and the current crop of players in Knockbride will undoubtedly have their sights set on doing so again in 2026 and beyond.

“Knockbride ladies have been a senior club for years. In 2002, the team went on and won intermediate. They won Ulster and then they lost the All-Ireland semi-final. They went on then in 2003 and won the senior championship in Cavan and won the senior Ulster.

“They went back down and won intermediate again then in 2012. We were up there in senior for a good while and then around 2016, 17, we went down. 2021 then, we were playing in a relegation match. To see us going from that to winning an All-Ireland is just magic.”

Away from the sporting field, 2022 was an interesting year for Rogers, a secondary school teacher in Swords in Dublin, as she was selected as the Cavan representative for the Rose of Tralee festival – though she stressed this experience pales in comparison to what she achieved with Knockbride in 2025.

“I did have an amazing two weeks down there. The craic with Daithi [Ó Sé], he’s a really, really sound man. It was amazing, but I think the All-Ireland tops it a little bit!”

Aside from now being an established club player, Rogers also has her role as Knockbride PRO to keep herself occupied behind the scenes and she is also involved at a county level as Assistant PRO of the Cavan LGFA.

“Coming up to the All-Ireland, there’s a lot of social media. There’s people tagging you in things. I have great help. Amie Lynch, she’s the ladies PRO and Megan McGreevy is PRO with me. I suppose because we’re such a small club, everyone wants to volunteer in some way,” Rogers explained.

“I only got into the county level there last year. I love that, it is up a scale. Between sponsors and everything, it is that wee bit harder. I do absolutely love it and we have Danny Hanley now as our PRO. He does be constantly onto me and I do be onto him. Between the pair of us, we’re getting it up and going.”