Womens' rugby Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Good article here from a few weeks ago, sounds like the Womens squad could do with a bit of a clean out

The shop window for the women’s rugby project in this country is a shambles

Brendan Fanning

November 24 2021 05:08 PM

The lingering image from the RDS last weekend featured Ireland captain Ciara Griffin being hoisted shoulder high by her team-mates.

For the player of the match it was an appropriate farewell on her early retirement.

Griffin’s team had held out against Japan despite being hampered by a sending off. As a snapshot of a united group finishing a failed season on a bright note you couldn’t have done better with an art director on hand.

The picture didn’t tell you anything of the performance, however, which illustrated the shortcomings in those rugby nations outside the handful at the top: poor skills leading to poor continuity making for a frustrating spectacle, well removed from elite status sport.

The following day we happened across an interested party on the way into Lansdowne Road for the men’s game with Argentina.

Their version of events in the women’s squad was well removed from sweetness and light.

The term ‘toxic’ was mentioned a few times to describe the culture in the group. Depending on who you talk to this is either ‘on the money’ or ‘over the top’.

What is inarguable is that the shop window for the women’s rugby project in this country is a shambles.

Saddled in 2018, by IRFU performance director David Nucifora, with the stratospheric target of accounting for 20 per cent of the Irish rugby model inside five years it has become a grim reality show where opportunities for publicity become endurance tests.

Going back a few months the plan for the Ireland squad was as follows: go to Parma and beat the teams Ireland were supposed to beat – Spain, Italy and Scotland – and come home happy that next year’s World Cup tickets were bought and paid for.

Then, look forward to the November series with the US and Japan as a confidence builder ahead of the Six Nations.

Next, crack on into that Championship with everyone on the same page and see if at least Ireland could be the best of the rest, after France and England. Maybe all the sessions and all the investment at the top end could produce some visible improvement against the big two, who are miles ahead.

Instead the World Cup qualifiers turned into a stress-fest, at the end of which the group was mentally scarred. On the night of the defeat by Scotland the Irish women had a few drinks in the team room at the hotel, followed by a few of them opting for a late night/early hours swim.

While it’s understood it got messy it’s important to put this in context. It wasn’t an orgy of destruction that had other guests hiding under their beds, but it was an embarrassment which compounded the disaster that had unfolded on the field earlier in the day.

“The IRFU was made aware of some minor damage to hotel furniture following the Ireland V Scotland WRWC in Parma last September,” an IRFU spokesman confirms. “The matter has been settled amicably.”

Most recently we were given a bizarre drama that reflected the divisions in the squad.

When Cliodhna Moloney reacted with an online swipe at the tone-deaf interview given by IRFU women’s director Anthony Eddy it sparked a flurry of activity among her team-mates.

It was painfully obvious the Sevens crew in the squad were reluctant to wade in to support her – they have those contracts and a potential World Cup place to be concerned about.

For some of the others, however, Sevens is an alien planet. Seemingly some were happy to row in behind their hooker; others felt pressured to do so. It is unlikely any coaching/management manual would prescribe this as good prep in the week of a Test match.

Eddy’s shortcomings in the communications stakes are obvious – quite a handicap given the sensitivities around the women’s game – but gathering up all the dirty laundry and putting it on display was from the same school of self-harm.

In any team setting, from minis to adults, cliques are corrosive. Surely this is the first thing incoming coach Greg McWilliams will address. But this is easier said than done.

The ludicrousness of the IRFU’s Strategic Plan, targeting the 20 per cent, was that it was coming off such a weak base. Any coach dreads a self-destructive core but radical surgery will almost certainly require plugging the hole with inexperienced and technically inferior players.

The trade-off comes in suffering on the scoreboard during the transition.

No coach wants to plead for a moratorium on the win/loss metric in his opening address, but in McWilliams’s case it might be worth it.

You’d imagine his next move will be to recruit the coaches in the women’s AIL as de facto assistants, to speed up the operation. We’d expect him to be pushing an open door on this one.

The domestic game is central to this production, and while it’s getting some love now you have to recognise the impact of years of neglect.

To be going over this ground yet again clarifies the confusion in the IRFU about what is needed in the women’s game.

You’d imagine at this point they might reckon Anthony Eddy is not the man for all seasons, and redraw his map solely for men’s Sevens, with a new appointment to the job of women’s director.

As for Ciara Griffin, a good friend of hers tells us she will be better off without “the mental drain of the group.”

What a sad commentary on that state of affairs. No wonder she looked so happy in the post-match snap.

But who will invest in it ?

It looks like the IRFU have seen enough not to.

Yet for decades women have not only played rugby unpaid, but literally paid for the privilege of doing so.

If you think there wouldn't be enough Irish qualified players interested you are very much mistaken.

After all, some of them are already playing for English clubs and earning far less than 50k.

Who are the great players that would walk into say the English or French starting team? I watch all the games and Parsons would be in with a chance. Some of the basic skills are terrible.

In 2015 we beat Scottish womens team 73-3 now they are knocking us out of RWC qualifiers, Did the Scottish womens team have bigger investment in them than Ireland inbetween? Does the Spanish team have anywhere near the investment in them that Irish women do?

And the outside Influence the IRFU mentioned in their letter has stared to take effect, While an official independent review process in in progress and not yet concluded....

Weather is deserved or not we do not know yet...Do these same Politian's say we should withhold TD's pay, if and while they are under investigation??

"

Members of an Oireachtas committee have suggested withholding State funding from the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) until it addresses the issues raised by female rugby players.......

......Fianna Fáil Senator Shane Cassells asked if the Government would withhold funding from the IRFU until it makes the changes that are demanded by the players......

"

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/1215/1266976-womens-rugby/

You cannot compare the treatment the men get and what the women get.

The men get put up in top hotels and are well paid because they are valuable assets.

They generate a return, revenue.

The women don't.

The women need to be subsidized because their sport is just not popular enough or high profile enough to even get close to standing on it's own two feet.

It sucks for the women, but it's reality.

The only women's sport that I can think of that gets anywhere near being self sufficient is the WTA and even that is a much smaller tour than the men's version the ATP.

There doesnt look like it and it most likely wouldnt be viable. Wales are contracting 10 players and another 15 will be semi pro soon enough and Scotland dont look like going pro any time soon and their ceo and others in union said any money offered now and into the near future wouldnt even make it worthwhile for most to take sabbaticals from their current jobs to go pro.

Pro contracts would need more rugby for the players no doubt but at what level.

I dont know. Compensation to come from where though? and there is little point in focusing on making players professional without other changes at all levels going in first. Getting the top 15-20 players on pro contracts may close the gap slightly to england, france but unless the clubs, and union make changes to all levels from age grade up then its pointless making a small number of players pros.

10k per player for every squad member is still between everything else 300/400k at a minimum and would be much more with all other associated costs.

If same as the previous Olympics then the 22-23 world series will be determining the 4 qualifiers for the Olympics and then regional tournaments will follow that. And as the world cup isnt going to be played for 11 months we have no idea when the qualification process will begin for the tournament in 5 years time.

Basketball in Ireland isnt professional at all. It got into serious financial issues about a decade ago. And the sport really struggled for some time at the elite level as a result of that. those financial issues were also a major reason for some of the internationals in recent years actually taking rugby up in the first place.

The women's team don't play abroad, take a look at the players who do. Almost exclusively forwards. It's as if our backs don't need higher level rugby, or we can fill our back line with 7s players.

That's fair enough, but the reality is that the IRFU and the women themselves seem very far apart on what the equity actually is.

Climb down by the IRFU. They will publish both reports.