It is fast becoming the most pressing chicken-and-egg condundrum of the modern GAA world.
What comes first, the needs of the clubs and counties of an amateur sporting organisation - or the opportunity for its members to enjoy the rarified lifestyle of a professional athlete?
At last count, there are somewhere in the region of 40 former Gaelic footballers plying their trade in the Women's Australian Football League - indeed, no less than seven Irishwomen were involved in the 2025 WAFL Grand Final in the early hours of Saturday morning.
North Melbourne Kangaroos - with Cork's Erika O’Shea, Fermanagh's Blaithín Bogue and Meath star Vikki Wall all among their troops - completed an unbeaten season by seeing off a Brisbane Lions side that contained Dublin's Jennifer Dunne, Tipperary's Orla O'Dwyer and Neasa Dooley from Kildare. Offaly's Amy Gavin Mangan was included on the Roos' emergency list.
Male Gaelic footballers and hurlers have been heading Down Under for decades to try their hand at Aussie Rules - with varying degrees of success. This veritable trickle of talent - although, naturally, often lamented - can at least be relatively easily absorbed in the men's game which rarely loses more than a handful of young stars here and there.
Mayo's Oisin Mullin and Kerryman Mark O'Connor's Geelong Cats were defeated in the Men's Grand Final back in September.
Even with the high-profile 'defections' of the game's brightest stars - like Mayo's Kobe McDonald and Offaly's Cillian Bourke (who is joining Essendon Bombners following his club Tullamore's Leinster SFC exit to Dublin's Ballyboden St Enda's on Saturday) - the playing pool in men's Gaelic football remains well stocked for the most part.
The trickle has become a worryingly steady stream in the ladies' game, however. It seems the challenge - from an Australian point of view - of getting a whole new mini-industry off the ground (the WAFL is less than a decade old) has prompted Aussie talent scouts to raid the fertile playing reserves that can be found in our Ladies Gaelic Football Association.
A certain unfortunate irony can be derived from the fact that the stellar advancements Gaelic football has seen in the women's game over the past 15 years has unwittingly merely made our players more attractive to a Women's Australian Football League that only got off the ground in 2017. The modern women's inter-county player is the perfect plug-and-play Aussie Rules candidate.
Legendary Mayo forward Cora Staunton knows every side of this argument. After a lifetime playing in the red and green, Staunton - at age 35 - was the first overseas player drafted in the fledgling WAFL when she was selected by Great Western Sydney Giants ahead of the 2017 season. Staunton would score over 50 goals in her Aussies Rules career before retiring in 2023.
Speaking to Des Cahill and Joanne Cantwell for Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1, the Carnaco legend broached the thorny issue of the GAA's talent drain.
"It's very hard to know. I'm probably stuck in the middle of it because obviously I want to see our best players playing Gaelic football here year round, whether it's for their club or it's for their country," Staunton acknowledged.
"And then I've obviously been over there and had the chance to play professional sport and the opportunity that it gave me was huge.
"It's worrying times for ladies Gaelic football. I read an article during the week that said we're losing a lot of our biggest stars, but I'm not sure what the solution is. I certainly don't know and I'm a member of the GPA.
"There's a lot of players looking to go out [to Australia]. I know that for a fact. I know there's a lot of AFL scouts in Ireland all the time looking for GAA players to come out. It's a balancing act."
What exactly the GAA can do to convince its best and brightest to shun the sunshine, money and way of life of a professional athlete in favour of staying put on this wet and windy little island of ours remains to be seen. Indeed, is the association even in a position to dissuade its members from seeking a new exciting challenge in a professional environment?
Staunton feels that improving the lot of the inter-county athlete at home might go some way to convincing players that Australian grass, although drier, is not necessarily greener.
"The only solution I have is that our football players - the ones that decide to stay - need to be looked after better," the four-time All-Ireland winner offered.
"In terms of their training all year round. The club finals are coming up in a couple of weeks. It's an 11- or 12-month season, so they need to be looked after better.
"But again, if I was asked a question by a young person, 'should I go out?' I'd always say yeah, because the opportunity to be a professional sports person is huge.
"So it is a conundrum. Our game is suffering. I know here in Mayo, in terms of the men, Kobe McDonald has been a huge talking point. Probably our biggest star that's came around in the last decade or two. We're going to lose him to the Australian game.
"But you can't stop young people having the opportunity to have a career in sports because there's not many sports here in Ireland that you get the opportunity to be a professional sports person like there is in Australia."
Listen to Cora Staunton's chat with Des Cahill and Joanne Cantwell from Saturday Sport in full at the top of this article.
