THE PLIGHT OF the Ireland women’s rugby team was up for discussion on this week’s Rugby Weekly Extra, a podcast for subscribers to The 42. 

After losing all of their games in the Six Nations, Ireland go into the third tier of the new WXV global tournament World Rugby will be launching later this year.

Murray Kinsella, rugby journalist with The 42, said he was  “surprised at the shock and the surprise around Ireland’s performances”. 

“We spoke about it right before the Six Nations, all the games that were potentially winnable this time we’re away from home and Ireland weren’t in the last World Cup,” Kinsella said.  

He added that Ireland are now chasing from a “long, long way back when everyone else the entire sport really is making incredible strides of progress”. 

“But it was always going to take several years,” he said. “And I suppose the worry now is that the 2025 World Cup is kind of looming and qualification around that is tied to WXV 2024. And if you are going to continue to rip things up over the next year and restart again – well then you’re starting from scratch again with real pressure on you to start performing. 

“So, it’s a complete mess and a mess that Irish rugby and the IRFU have brought upon themselves by those 10-15 years of not putting enough intelligent investment into this, and maybe it wasn’t always just about resource it was at times about the intent and the will and that wasn’t there.” 

With Greg McWilliams not expected to stay on as head coach, Kinsella said the new candidate faces a considerable challenge. He said applicants might think that McWilliams’ tenure is a cautionary tale because he might have “damaged his career”.  

“And I hope it’s not ultra damaging in that regard because he was on a really promising trajectory and got good roles in the States and came back and there were other nations interested . . . Hopefully he’ll be able to bounce back in his career, a young Irish coach who didn’t have a big playing background. I think it’s always good to see people like that getting opportunities, but it’s not an attractive job at the moment. However, right now, the only possible way is up.”  

Kinsella said the balancing of the talent pool between 7s and 15s needs to be “reevaluated properly” post Paris Olympics. He said the level of rugby available to players underneath the national team is also a concern.  

There will be a ‘Women in Rugby’ media briefing at the IRFU High Performance Centre next Wednesday, where Kinsella said “real clarity” and a “bounce of optimism” based on “the plan for everything underneath the national team” is needed.  

“The contracts thing has kind of almost been a distraction to what the real issue is. A lot of the Irish players who stayed in England, they’re earning far less than the 15 to 30 thousand that was offered in Ireland. Like, they’re not getting well paid over there, but they feel they’re in a really good league, a really good system, they’re going to continue improving as players because the setup there is excellent and then they look home and they think, what’s happening you know, what is the plan here?” 

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