Michelle Ryan Brings Glorious Inter County Career to an End

One of the greatest exponents of Ladies Gaelic Football has decided to hang up her boots after 18 years playing with the Waterford team.

Since first joining the Waterford Senior Ladies Football Panel in 2001, Michelle Ryan has proven to be one of the finest players that the game has ever produced over a long period in which she won many honours.

Michelle first pulled on the Waterford jersey as a player to help Waterford capture the 1998 under 14 all-Ireland Final and went on to play for the county at all levels since then.

Two All-Ireland minor finals were also won with Michelle involved in 2000 and 2001where she was one of the standout players from a talented panel of players.

She played with the Waterford Senior team for a number of years before the side were relegated to the Intermediate Championship in 2008. Playing in the second tier championship Waterford were very successful winning seven Munster Finals in a row between 2009 and 2015 where Michelle was one of a number of players to be involved in all seven winning teams. In this time Michelle helped Waterford to reach three All-Ireland Intermediate finals, losing to Donegal in 2010 and Armagh in 2012 before beating Kildare in 2015 where she played alongside her younger sisters Louise and Sinead.

During her long inter county career she help Waterford to win the 2002 Munster Senior Final and is the holder of National League Medals in Divisions One, Two and Three, beating Mayo in the Division One title at Ennis in 2002, Tipperary at Thurles in the 2016 Division Three final and last year helped Waterford defeat a fancied Kerry side in the Division two final at Parnell Park in Dublin.

Over a long number of years she was selected to play with Munster in the Interprovincial Championship helping the southern province to win on five occasions in 2007, 2009, 2011 and most recently in 2018 and 2019.

Twice nominated for an All-Star in 2010 and 2012 when Waterford were playing in the Intermediate grade, she was four times selected on a National League team of the year, twice in Division three in 2010 and 2014 and twice in Division two in 2011 and 2019. In 2017 she was voted Munster’s player of the year.

Michelle is an integral part of the Ballymacarbry Club where she has won so many honours down the years who she will continue to play for and will continue to work to develop the game of Ladies Football at Club, County and inter county level in the coming years.

Many of us who are supporting Waterford Ladies Football will remember Michelle and her sister Louise as mascots for the great team put together by her father Michael in the 1990’s and will remember them kneeling in front of team photographs taken in Croke Park on All-Ireland Final day.