Tag Archives: IRFU

The Ireland team stand for the national anthem before the 2021 Rugby World Cup European Qualifying Tournament against Italy in Italy last September

This afternoon.

Dear Ministers,

We write to you as a deeply discouraged group of current and former Irish women’s rugby players having sadly lost all trust and confidence in the IRFU and its leadership after historic failings.

The aim of this letter is to seek your support now to enable meaningful change for all levels of the women’s game in Ireland from grassroots to green shirts.

We write in the wake of a series of recent disappointments for the international team, on and off the field, but ultimately recent events simply reflect multiple cycles of substandard commitment from the union, inequitable and untrustworthy leadership, a lack of transparency in the governance and operation of the women’s game both domestically and at international level, and an overall total lack of ambition about what it could achieve.

In 2014, the Irish XV team finished the season ranked fourth in the world, having won a Six Nations Grand Slam the year before. This triggered the beginning of a new World Cup cycle and new leadership within Irish rugby with David Nucifora and Anthony Eddy overseeing the women’s programme.

The end of this cycle ended in bitter disappointment as the team finished eighth in their home World Cup in 2017, crashing out in the pool stages.

In response, the IRFU produced an action plan for the game with a number of high level targets. However we find ourselves at the end of 2021 with those plans in disarray and with a large majority of those targets missed, including the XV team’s failure to qualify for the World Cup and the sevens team’s failure to qualify for the Olympics.

Notwithstanding the challenges of the pandemic, these facts represent significant failure.

This is not just a recent issue. At the end of every World Cup cycle in the Irish women’s game, there has been a review.

None of these reviews have ever been made public, with the IRFU cherry picking a handful of findings to present to the public. Many of us have felt that the range of stakeholders asked to take part in these reviews have not always reliably represented the game well enough to capture accurate, independent data and insight – neither do all of us feel fully confident that the information submitted has been factual and designed to act in the best interest of the women’s game.

There are now two ongoing reviews – one into the failure to qualify for the World Cup, and a second looking at the implementation of the current ‘Women in Rugby Action Plan’ which was due to run till 2023 and which covers all aspects of the game across Ireland.

Despite there being well-qualified independent leads running these, we have no faith that in the end that these will do anything significantly different to all those which have gone before and therefore the overarching objective of this letter is to ask for your help to intervene in these processes to make them genuinely transparent and meaningful.

A large group of current players, including some who have recently retired, have collectively submitted a more detailed overview for the World Cup Qualifier review, which we are happy to privately share with you.

This gives greater context to some of the current disillusionment but there is a wider and historic element to all of this and that is why we are asking for your support with the following.

– We ask that you meet with the IRFU to confirm appropriate guarantees of meaningful change so the women’s game can move forward positively.

– We ask that you request oversight of the ongoing reviews; help guarantee the findings are transparent and help ensure that they maintain their independence.

– We ask for your support in gaining assurances that both the findings and the recommendations of these reviews will be made fully available to the players and that relevant details and full recommendations are published publicly and following that, that leadership with the necessary authority and appropriate governance is put in place alongside a serious action plan and new targets to help move the game forward.

Unresolved, the many challenges facing the women’s game at all levels have the potential to have a significant knock-on effect not just at the top end but also on the grassroots game. There are increasing numbers of young girls taking up rugby across Ireland but the IRFU’s failure to create meaningful pathways significantly impacts the quality of the system and structures these community players are experiencing.

All of this is happening at a time when women’s rugby around the world is on a massive upward trajectory. Playing numbers, TV audiences, crowds and investments are on the rise but we fear Ireland will be left further and further behind and the opportunity for growth will disappear at a time when surely we ought to be promoting as many sporting opportunities for women and girls across the country as possible.

We appreciate that your roles oversee all sport across the country and these are specific issues, but we have tried to work constructively with the IRFU for decades and much of the same problems persist.

Many of us have been part of previous attempts via private intervention to work constructively with the IRFU to help them to understand how the players have felt over many years and to support them to make changes which would create the right environment for women’s rugby at all levels to thrive. These have failed and so we feel we have to resort to requesting your help and to publishing this letter.

We want to make clear that a small number of current players who either work for the IRFU or have playing contracts with them were not asked to sign this letter, for obvious reasons.

We have always believed that with the right structures, processes and support that Ireland could become a leading women’s rugby nation, providing opportunities for everyone at all levels, and even with all of the recent challenges, we are certain that with your support we can come out of this better and stronger.

We thank you for your ongoing support

Ciara Griffin; Lynne Cantwell; Fiona Coghlan; Grace Davitt; Claire Molloy; Paula Fitzpatrick; Mairead Kelly; Laura Guest; Ailish Eagn; Lauren Day; Allison Miller; Marie Louise Reilly; Jen Murphy; Heather O’Brien; Deirdre O’Brien; Shannon Houston; Ruth O’Reilly; Nikki Caughey; Stacey Lee Kennedy; Jackie Sheils; Orla Fitzsimons; Sharon Lynch; Siobhan Fleming; Sarah Mimnagh, Mairead Coyne, Fiona Reidy, Nicole Fowley, Ilse Van Staden. Alisa Hughes, Anna Caplice. Louise Galvin, Laura Feely, Edel McMahon. Michelle Claffey. Aoife McDermott, Cliodhna Moloney. Lindsay Peat Ciara Cooney, Leah Lyons, Chloe Pearse. Nichola Fryday, Sene Naoupu, Laura Sheehan, Lauren Delany, Emma Hooban, Ellen Murphy, Anne-Marie O’Hora, Kathryn Dane, Judy Bobett. Neve Jones, Katie O’Dwyer, Aoife Doyle, Hannah O’Connor, Eimear Considine. Victoria Dabonovich O’Mahony, Shannon Touhy, Catherine Buggy, Sam Monaghan, Ciara Cooney, Leah Lyons, Chloe Pearse, Nichola Fryday, Sene Naoupu, Laura Sheehan, Lauren Delany, Emma Hooban. Ellen Murphy. Anne-Marie O’Hora, Kathryn Dane, Judy Bobett, Neve Jones, Katie O’Dwyer, Aoife Doyle, Hannah O’Connor, Eimear Considine, Victoria Dabonovich O’Mahony. Shannon Touhy, Catherine Buggy, Sam Monaghan and Hannah Tyrell.

In fairness.

Irish players write to government to express loss of trust in IRFU (RTÉ)

Pic: INPHO via Rugby.ie

John McClean abused 23 boys while a teacher at Terenure College. He was appointed to head up UCD’s rugby academy

Via Gavin Cummiskey in the Irish Times (full article at link below):

…Everyone in south Dublin rugby circles knew McClean.

If this reporter heard the rumours about him when I was still a teenager in the late 1990s, can the decision makers back then honestly say the same whispers failed to reach their ears? If the answer is ‘we heard nothing’ then there is a far deeper problem than we already perceive it to be.

…Despite decades of sexual assault, John McClean wielded enormous power as UCD director of rugby. Terenure College and UCD must explain how he was able to skip from one rugby institution to another unchecked.

In the summer of ‘96 McClean the coach toured Australia with the Ireland schoolboys, some of whom have since become central figures in the professional game, before taking up his new job on the Belfield campus.

….If he had already admitted to abusing one boy – as court records show – then Terenure would have warned the IRFU and UCD before he ascended to one of the most influential positions in Irish rugby, right?

….His victims, one of whom described him as “evil personified,” and the public deserve to know precisely what happened between the summer of 1996 and the beginning of that first UCD term in the autumn of 1997. If for nothing else than to ensure that history does not repeat itself…

The Offload: John McClean questions can no longer be silenced (Gavin Cummiskey, The Irish Times)

Earlier: Blocking A Victim

RollingNews

Chief Executive of the Irish Rugby Football Union Phillip Browne (second left) arriving at the Department of Health on Baggot Street in Dublin for a meeting with Minister for Health Simon Harris earlier

This afternoon.

The IRFU has released the following statement:

The IRFU had a positive meeting with Minister Harris and his advisors today, where we requested a formal instruction as to the staging of the Ireland v Italy international matches over the weekend of 6/8 March.

At the outset we made it clear that the IRFU was supportive of the Governments’ need to protect public health in relation to the Coronavirus.

We were then advised, formally, that The National Public Health Emergency team has determined that the series of matches should not proceed, in the interests of Public Health.

The IRFU is happy to comply with this instruction.

We will immediately begin to work with our Six Nations partners to look at the possibility of rescheduling the matches and would hope to have an update on this in the coming days.

IRFU Statement On Ireland’s Six Nations Matches Against Italy (IRFU)

Earlier: Proportionate Measures

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Yesterday

Aldi and the IRFU announced the latest  winners of the  Aldi Play Rugby sticker competition for primary schools to win one of two €50,000 sports facility makeovers.

St. Peter & Paul’s National School, Drumconrath, Navan, Co Meath, St. Joseph’s National School, Leitrim Village, Co Leitrim will have 50,000 big ones to spend at their ‘leisure’

Ian Collins writes:

Due to the phenomenal success of the last two competitions, Aldi also announced  that it will return for 2020, and stickers will be available in stores from TODAY

The competition is easy to enter and works by primary schools collecting 300 of Aldi’s exclusive Irish rugby men’s and women’s stickers for their primary school.

Available in Aldi’s 140 Irish stores, shoppers collect one sticker for every €30 they spend in store between 31st January & 24th April…

Register here

group_rdax_80

From left: Clare McLaughlin, Niamh Briggs, Ireland Women’s head coach Tom Tierney, Nora Stapleton and Alison Miller at the Pool Draw for the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2017 in Belfast City Hall last November

Too many caps.

Not enough integration.

An open letter by frustrated supporters of the women’s game.

To whomever cares,

When we were returning to Ireland after the women’s Rugby World Cup in France in 2014, we were exhausted but so excited about the future of women’s rugby in Ireland.

We had beaten New Zealand, the first International team in Irish history to do so. We eventually lost to England in a tough semi final but anyone who was in Marcoussis that day knows the feeling of anticipation and expectation that lay ahead of this team.

Ireland had been underestimated by New Zealand and even by some of their fans but they over-delivered and it lead to one of the greatest days in Irish sporting history.

Naturally after a World Cup a team goes through a transition period, Philip Doyle retired as head coach of the team and Ireland’s most capped players, Fiona Coughlan and Lynne Cantwell stepped down along with Siobhan Flemming, Laura Guest and Grace Davitt. However the future was bright for the Irish team, Niamh Briggs was named in the team of the tournament (Scrumqueens) and took over the captaincy from Fiona Coughlan.

Alison Miller who scored one of the most famous tries of the tournament was coming into her own and a wealth of players who had stood up at the world cup were ready for the next challenge.

From the first game of the 2015 6 Nations to the Italy match two weeks ago 32 new players have been capped under Tom Tierney and the management team, ie. 32 new caps in 16 games since the 2014 World Cup.

And to put that into context, during Philip Doyle’s last four years as Irish Head Coach, 21 new players were capped across 4 seasons, including 1 World Cup and 4 6Nations tournaments. 14 of those 21 caps came in the first two years of the World Cup cycle.

Not only did this give the players time to gain invaluable test match experience it also allowed them to develop and implement structures while building effective partnerships on the pitch.

New caps and inconsistencies in positions means that with three competitive games to go before the World Cup, it appears the management team still do not know who their best 23 are.

Four different scrum-halves have been used, three different 10’s – Nora Stapleton, Nikki Caughey and Sene Naoupu who played there against England in the November International in 2015. If they do indeed pull Sene Naoupu from this weekend’s squad against France, Ireland have no experienced 10 in the current set up to call upon should Nora Stapleton pick up an injury. Nikki Caughey remains the most realistic option and we would be surprised not to see her included this weekend but she has not played since being dropped after the Autumn International against Canada and wasn’t even listed in this year’s 6 Nations squad that was named back in January. With out-half such a key position, our lack of depth and over reliance on Stapleton is worrying.

Six hookers have been utilised with the potential for this to increase to seven depending on who is selected to cover for the injured Jennie Finlay this weekend. Meanwhile, two capped Irish International hookers are playing club rugby on a weekly basis – Zoe Grattage (Highfield) and Gillian Bourke (UL Bohemians) who has over 50 caps to her name and whose club are currently sitting on top of the AIL League.

Since 2015 the management team have used 8 different centre partnerships – Sene Naoupu a stalwart in the 12 position has played with 5 different 13’s outside her – how can an effective partnership be developed with so much change? Nine different wingers have started the last 16 test games while he has also capped eight different props – Ailis Egan and Lindsey Peat being the only two consistently called upon.

However it wasn’t until the Autumn Series in 2016 did we see the most inconsistency from the Irish camp. We were setup to play England, Canada and New Zealand, the top three teams in the world, an ambitious series however you want to look at it. In the England game three players received their first cap’s for the women’s team. But this is what Autumn Series are for isn’t it, trial and error? For Canada there were 10 changes to the side that lost to England and two new caps again. And finally New Zealand, the first matchup since our historic victory, again saw ten changes from the team that lost to Canada. We finished the series 0-3.

At this stage, we were less than 12 months away from a Rugby World Cup and it appears that the Irish management team really has no idea who their best 15 are, because your best 15 are those whom you should have sent out to take on the 3 top ranked nations in the World. It should then be up to new players to break into this squad and rightfully take a position.

So following this we now have a wealth of players capped for Ireland, but what has this given us? There are a large number of players with 2/3 caps to their name, with very limited time on the pitch, who were brought in for a match here and there and then released back out to the extended squad to continue with the International S+C programme with no clear information from management on whether they are still in the plans for the looming World Cup.

Would it not have been more beneficial to integrate players gradually into the team whilst having them surrounded by experience? Tierney may argue that he has developed a wider pool of experienced players but are players with 2/3 caps and limited playing time really experienced players? Would it not have been more effective to cap fewer players and give those involved more playing time? If the argument is that there are not enough competitive internationals to test players then why has the IRFU not developed the inter-pro series further or started an U20’s side like England and France?

While all this is going on we need to remember that the women’s 15’s set up in Ireland is still non-professional, these players are still in college or working Mon-Fri and training in the morning, evening and at the weekend. These players are sacrificing their personal life for the women’s game. And in our opinion are not getting the same level of commitment from the union in return for their inputs.

If the current rumours are true and the team is to lose three starting players ahead of the crucial clash against France, a team they will also face in this years World Cup, it is just another way of telling the players in the 15’s setup that they are not going to be given the opportunity to have a consistent build up to the World Cup in Dublin and Belfast this August. In 2016 the focus was on 7’s, and this is perfectly acceptable, the squad were chasing qualification for the Rio Olympics. This year Ireland are hosting the world’s biggest competition in 15’s rugby and they are still not been given the support of the union to fairly compete at the tournament. Anthony Eddy, an internationally recognised 7’s coach, has a clear plan for the 7’s development but unfortunately we have not seen the same approach for the 15’s game.

Accountability is a term often used by coaches, be accountable for your position, for your player, for your job. We would like for Tom Tierney, Anthony Eddy and the management team to be held accountable for the inconsistencies that are rampant within this setup. We want someone from the IRFU to clarify how less than three years after beating the world champions and with just 6 months remaining before hosting the World Cup and 32 new caps later how we are just narrowly beating Scotland, a team who we have not lost against since the 2006 World Cup.

IRFU, Eddy and Tierney, please do not underestimate us like New Zealand underestimated Ireland on the 5th of August in Marcoussis in 2014. Please do not think that we, as a nation, are happy for you to throw away our chances of reaching a World Cup final on home soil. Please do not think that we, as Irish supporters, do not expect to win every match that Ireland step out to play.

And please do think about how seriously we support the women’s game in Ireland and how much we want to see it grow and flourish in the weeks, months and years to come.

Anyone?

Has 15’s In Ireland Been Kicked Into Touch? (Women’s Rugby In Ireland)

Ireland Women may lose three players to Sevens team for France game (Irish Times)

Women’s rugby on Broadsheet.ie

Pic via IrishRugby.ie

jack
goggles

From top: Mick and Jack at the Aviva Lansdowne Road Nua; Rugby Goggles.

Look into the eyes.

Mick writes:

I am the parent of a boy who has been told by his coach at a local rugby club that in accordance with I.R.F.U. rules he can no longer play rugby as he has to wear protective goggles. Jack is seven. In the interest of equality and fairness I am appealing to the I.R.F.U. to reconsider its nonparticipation in the IRB Approved Protective Goggles Trial.

According to Marc Douglas (IRB), who has been contacted as part of this appeal “…the Goggles Trial [ to see if the eyewear can be worn without causing injury to any player] is ongoing and has been very successful … The feedback received has been overwhelmingly positive and it has enabled a large cross section of people to get into and get back into playing rugby….”The IRB “… are hoping that the goggles will become law soon”.

Naturally Jack is distraught as he cannot participate in rugby, a sport that he loves as he requires glasses. All I am asking for is that the I.R.F.U. sign up for the trial. Please sign our petition to support Jack and other people like him and allow them participate in rugby.

Mick’s petition has currently 704 signatures.

You can sign it here.

World Rugby Goggles Global Law Trial (World Rugby)

Mini and Leprechaun Rugby Regulations (Irish Rugby)

Thanks Anne-Marie McNally


Free this weekend?

Ireland Women’s Rugby 7s squad host a World Rugby event [August 22 and 23] at the UCD Bowl, Belfield, Dublin 4, involving teams from Brazil, South Africa, Samoa, Hong Kong, Mexico, Wales, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands and China.

With an Olympic repechage spot already secured by Ireland, the top two teams this weekend qualify for the full World Rugby 7s Series.

Ruck!

Full list of fixtures here.

Tickets  €5 (chizzlers free).

World Rugby Women’s 7s Series

Irish Rugby (I.R.F.U.)

 

..but what could it be?

Ah.

denisBaloon

He’s buying everyone.

Except the people he’s suing.

The Irish Times reports:

Jonathan Sexton’s commercial agreement with Denis O’Brien, which played a significant role in bringing the Ireland outhalf back to Leinster next season, confirms the new IRFU strategy of keeping hold of their most precious commodities. Basically, the provinces can now top up central contracts with private funding….

Sexton agreement with Denis O’Brien confirms IRFU’s strategy (Gavin Cummiskey, Irish Times)

(Photocall Ireland)