Four-time All Ireland camogie champion Anna Geary has been praised by viewers of her special documentary focusing on girls playing sport in school.
The first of a two-part series, entitled Why Girls Quit Sport, aired on RTÉ this evening.
It examined why so many young girls give up sports.
The series follows Anna as she takes on her biggest challenge yet: to create a Ladies Gaelic football team from the students of Ringsend College, a school on the outskirts of Dublin city where just a handful of female students play sports.
In just eight weeks Anna will have to encourage the girls to sign up, turn up, and form a team which is ready to play against other school teams in a GAA blitz.
The doc highlighted some worrying stats - by the age of 13, 50% of young women drop out of sport, while only 7% of girls aged 14 to 15 meet the daily recommended activity levels.
Meeting experts throughout, Anna will look at current research which aims to explain the current state of play, and learn some startling statistics about the impacts of inactivity on teenagers' mental health.
And the first episode has gone down very well.
Anna met the girls and got a feel for their attitudes towards sport - and more importantly, the issues they had with it, including their worries about what they had to wear.
One fan tweeted: "The show is positively infectious. @niallmoyna talks sense ! There is a great message in this program . Well done to all involved."
While inter-county GAA referee David Gough added "Just catching @AnnaGCork's brilliant documentary "Why Girls Quit Sport" on RTE - a fascinating insight into the drop out rates of young women in sport & how they see themselves fitting into the physical activity narrative."
Another fan said "Watching #annageary on #rte2. Fantastic TV. Gas to see Ringsend Tech on the telly. I repeated my leaving there. Great memories."
While another woman summed it all up quite nicely, saying "Loving @AnnaGCork #whygirlsquitsports, was always embarrassed, was always expecting to be last picked, wasn’t competitive, raging now of course but still, clumsy and two left feet always"
Anna Geary: Why Girls Quit Sport aired on July 15. with part two coming on July 22, RTE Two at 9.30pm. The first episode is now available on the RTE Player.
