Teresa Mannion has tipped Denise McCormack to go all the way in this year’s Dancing with the Stars, after the judges opted to keep her in the competition after tonight's Dance-Off.
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, Teresa said she was happy to have gotten as far as she did in the competition, saying that she had gone in "completely raw" as a dancer.
"Human nature forces you to keep the momentum going and to stay in the competition because it really is an amazing competition and experience," she said, "but that said, I recognise my own limitations and I thought I did really well to get to week 8."
Having never danced before, Teresa embarked on what was a risky journey, but was proud of how far she got on the show.
"I never danced before, I was really completely raw starting out, so I feel going and dancing in front of the nation was a big achievement for me, because I was seriously out of my comfort zone," she said.
"It was so challenging to go on live television with skill-sets that you don’t have you know? I’m only used to live news reporting, so dancing live was scary," she said, "but I'm delighted with myself overall that I got to this point in the journey," she said.
Teresa ended up in the bottom two alongside Denise, who herself bagged a high score of 27, and the duo faced off in the first Dance-Off of the series.
Tight-lipped at first, Teresa was keeping mum on who she is backing to win the show.
"I really couldn't predict, it’s anybody's guess," she said, "I mean it's a show that keeps throwing up shockers all the time, I think there’s three people today being seen as the three top dancers on the show and they are probably the three that will be in the final."
Goodbye to @TeresaMannion & @johnednolan, tune into the @RyanTubridyShow in the morning to hear them! #DWTSIrl pic.twitter.com/d8j8is3QmC
— RTE One (@RTEOne) February 26, 2017
However, when pressed, Teresa showed her hand, saying shes backing Denise to win the Glitterball trophy.
"I have a personal favourite and that's Denise, I just really connected with her on the show and I’d love to see her holding that Glitterball."
The judges awarded Teresa a score of 16, placing her at the bottom of the leaderboard on this weeks show, but Teresa holds no hard feelings towards them.
"Hand on my heart I thought overall I took it on the chin what they said each week," she said, "myself and John - they didn’t ever really cut us any slack, we didn’t ever feel there was ever any generous score."
"I'm not on a negative roll here at all, I accept that I was really sort of rough around the edges in comparison to some of the wonderful dancers on the show.”
utilised well to polish the floor
Teresa heaped praise on her dancing partner, Kilkenny man John Nolan, for helping her along, as she said she was “beyond scared” when she first started out.
"My partner John was amazing," she said, "he was just terrific and was so patient - he brought me on huge leaps and bounds to get me to week eight."
"I was beyond scared when i started out, and i really give him a lot of credit he was fantastic, personally I think we had great fun together."
Teresa says she’ll now take a few days off before heading back to her job, but you can catch her on the Ryan Tubridy show tomorrow morning at 9am.
