IT’S A CRISP autumn afternoon at the IRFU’s high performance centre in Dublin. Some of the most talented young rugby players in Ireland are getting stuck into a session on one of the lovingly manicured training pitches.
There are 58 players in total, ranging from the age of 16 up to 23, all of them part of the Women’s National Talent Squad [WNTS], a programme that identifies and supports young players with the potential to become senior Ireland internationals.
They’ve assembled for a three-day camp designed to accelerate the development already being undertaken every week in six provincial training hubs around the country.
Having gathered on Wednesday, the players were led through presentations on analysis, nutrition, and medical protocols, as well as being given an overview of the rugby curriculum that guides how they’re being coached.
Thursday morning involved position-specific training. Ireland’s senior scrum coach, Denis Fogarty, leads the work in that area. He’s sporting a bleached-blonde head of hair, the result of a lost bet during the recent WXV competition in Vancouver.
John McKee, who previously led Fiji to two men’s World Cups and is now working as part of the IRFU women’s pathway, is obsessed with lineouts so he’s part of that work.
Ex-Ireland scrum-half Larissa Muldoon is one of the four ‘national talent coaches’ who are central to these camps, so she drives the backs’ work on attacking shape on Thursday morning.
Outside these camps, Muldoon works in the two WNTS hubs in Connacht, with Niamh Briggs in charge of Munster, Matt Gill overseeing Leinster, and Neill Alcorn working in Ulster.
In this second session on Thursday afternoon, there is focused work on ‘collision craft,’ the players’ skills in the tackle, before they split into three groups – U18s, U20s, and Emerging – for a series of intense, loud training games. Friday’s double day will involve more position-specific work and those lively games.
The Ireland U18s at the IRFU's high performance centre earlier this year. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
“It has to be fun as well,” says ex-Ireland international Katie Fitzhenry, the WNTS and talent identification manager for the IRFU. Basically, she’s the boss of this camp.
The four WNTS athletic development coaches are present, one from each province, and multiple physios stand by for any injury issues. The Ireland U18s and Ireland U20s team managers are on site too.
These young players have already done a goal-setting session with Siobhain McArdle, the IRFU’s head of psychology, and will review their training performance with her afterwards. So lots of stones have been overturned.
“It has grown massively,” says Fitzhenry of the WNTS programme, which was made up of just 13 players when it was first announced. Current Ireland stars Dannah O’Brien and Aoife Dalton were part of that group.
“This is only up and running just over a year now. We’re starting to get a real handle on who’s out there, who’s playing what, we’re getting to more games. We have more people on the ground and more resources to do that.
“It’s only going to continue to grow and with the senior girls doing so well over at WXV, it excites these young girls even more to want to play.”
There are 80 players in the WNTS now.
Muldoon explains how the hubs in Connacht work, with 20 players from the western province involved in the WNTS. They come to their hub in either the University of Galway or ATU Sligo twice a week for strength and conditioning, skills sessions, individual analysis, and work on things like nutrition, injury prevention, and mental skills.
This comes on top of training with their clubs or schools, as well as any other sports they’re playing, so balance is important.
Muldoon outlines how a flagging system means coaches around the province can highlight players of clear potential. She works to build relationships with more coaches whose opinions she can trust. As soon as a player is flagged three times, Muldoon will visit her club to take a look. High-potential players join the WNTS.
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“It is really clear now for young female athletes within the provinces that there is a pathway,” says Muldoon.
There are other hubs in Dublin City University and SETU Carlow for Leinster, the University of Limerick and University College Cork in Munster, and Queen’s University for Ulster.
Katie Fitzhenry manages the WNTS programme. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
For players who are as young as 16, this is comprehensive stuff. Simply put, it didn’t exist only a couple of years ago.
As in the men’s game, the IQ Rugby branch of the union is looking for Irish-qualified players based in the UK, with two of them involved in this training camp.
There was no Ireland U20s squad until last year but now they’re part of a new annual Summer Series, while the U18s play in the Six Nations Festival in early April. There is also an Ireland U18 Sevens side.
All of this is possible because the IRFU has stumped up the money. When Kevin Potts joined as CEO at the start of 2022, the union was reeling after a group of 62 current and former Irish players wrote to the government to express their loss of faith in IRFU.
Those were dark days for women’s rugby but the reaction since has been game-changing.
The IRFU’s investment into the women’s game went from €3.1 million in 2021 to €6.4 million last year and it’s understood that the next financial update will confirm another strong increase in funding for women’s rugby.
Part of that investment is going into professional women’s contracts which were launched in 2022, ranging from €15,000 to €30,000 per season. There were 37 professionally contracted players in the latest confirmed list, many of whom play 7s and 15s rugby.
It’s not life-changing money but the hope is that with the ongoing growth of women’s rugby, the remuneration will soon rise too.
The IRFU has stated its goal of having professional women’s teams in Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connacht in the next few years, with the provinces all on board.
That means a further expansion of the Celtic Challenge competition against Scottish and Welsh sides is likely, with two Irish development teams already playing in that now annual tournament.
So being a professional rugby player is a real prospect for the youngsters currently in the WNTS.
“The contracts are amazing because there’s that carrot dangling for these players,” says Muldoon.
It also helps that the senior Ireland team’s fortunes have changed under head coach Scott Bemand, his bulked-up coaching team, and their own improved resources. They have already benefitted from the work being done in the pathway.
21-year-old Aoife Wafer is a role model for WNTS players. Travis Prior / INPHO
Travis Prior / INPHO / INPHO
Watching Ireland – who will be at next year’s World Cup – winning games against New Zealand, the USA, and Australia in recent months is highly motivating for the hopefuls in the pathway.
Bemand’s squad have a mantra of the ‘Green Wave,’ which they hope will inspire the next generation. In recent days, the players at this WNTS camp were rubbing shoulders with senior internationals in the IRFU’s high performance centre.
“It’s such a buzz,” says Muldoon. “Even the girls being here now, they were in the HPC chatting to Aoife Wafer yesterday.
“She’s saying she will come out and help, it’s so personable. But also they can see the next step, where they want to go. Everyone here is itching to be part of that.”
As well as the player development work, the women’s game is intent on upskilling young coaches like Muldoon, who is 33.
Back her distinguished playing days with Ireland, the Donegal woman worked as a development officer in Leinster and has more recently taken on roles with the Ireland U18s and U20s, Railway Union RFC, Trinity and DCU, as well as going through World Rugby’s High Performance Academy programme for female coaches. Muldoon has also worked as assistant backs and attack coach with Bemand’s senior Ireland squad.
She was appointed to her national talent coach role last year, taking up one of eight new full-time positions around the provinces, and has been working with Darragh Sheridan, the IRFU’s head of high performance coach development, to continue her development.
That led to a recent three-month placement as the backs coach with Canterbury in New Zealand from which Muldoon returned just last week.
She learned lots tactically and technically as a young Canterbury team unexpectedly reached the final of the Farah Palmer Cup, but some of the off-the-pitch stuff landed most.
Kiwi teams are big on ‘themeing,’ where everything they do is guided by a central theme. Each match week is driven by a certain word or message that relates to the overall theme.
“Our theme was ‘Moana,’ so it was all about the heart of the ocean,” says Muldoon. “Our thing was, ‘Grab your paddle and get on the waka [a Māori canoe].’
In the days after Muldoon arrived, Canterbury’s players were told there would be no rugby training. They had to meet at the port at 6am instead.
“We were basically taught about what the waka was, what it symbolises. We went out on the water and learned how to paddle as a team.
“You’re sitting there in the stillness of the water and we had to close our eyes and use our senses to feel if we were paddling too deep or too high, how you’d give that feedback. It was cool. Even talking about it gives me goosebumps.”
Larissa Muldoon with senior Ireland wing Beibhinn Parsons. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
When they got back to shore, they had a big social event involving family and friends.
“The whānau, the family, is really important,” says Muldoon. “Team connection through kai, their food, is massive.
“Their theme is related to their sounds, their symbols, and I feel we as Irish people have that in us.
“It’s embedded in there somewhere but I feel we’ve lost a bit of that because we’re straight on rugby tasks, we forget the fun side of it, the musical side of it and how we bring people together.”
Clearly, it was a thought-provoking trip. Muldoon is keen to keep developing and hopes that other women in rugby can see that just as players can now pursue careers in rugby, so can coaches like her and Briggs.
The IRFU’s head of performance and pathways, Gillian McDarby, oversees all of this development work and Fitzhenry praises her leadership.
The union confirmed last week that legendary ex-Ireland centre Lynne Cantwell will join as its head of women’s strategy in January, returning from a similar role in South Africa.
“It’s really exciting,” says Fitzhenry. “She has shown what she can do with South Africa, they’ve gone from strength to strength.
“It’s really cool that it’s one of our own and someone who has been within the system.”
“For anyone, it’s a really exciting time to come into women’s rugby in Ireland.”
Perhaps the most exciting thing is that the likes of Fitzhenry and Muldoon say that all of this is in its infancy. They’re already dreaming of broader, deeper programmes across the country. They believe that this is only just the start.
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'The pro contracts are amazing because that carrot is dangling for players'
IT’S A CRISP autumn afternoon at the IRFU’s high performance centre in Dublin. Some of the most talented young rugby players in Ireland are getting stuck into a session on one of the lovingly manicured training pitches.
There are 58 players in total, ranging from the age of 16 up to 23, all of them part of the Women’s National Talent Squad [WNTS], a programme that identifies and supports young players with the potential to become senior Ireland internationals.
They’ve assembled for a three-day camp designed to accelerate the development already being undertaken every week in six provincial training hubs around the country.
Having gathered on Wednesday, the players were led through presentations on analysis, nutrition, and medical protocols, as well as being given an overview of the rugby curriculum that guides how they’re being coached.
Thursday morning involved position-specific training. Ireland’s senior scrum coach, Denis Fogarty, leads the work in that area. He’s sporting a bleached-blonde head of hair, the result of a lost bet during the recent WXV competition in Vancouver.
John McKee, who previously led Fiji to two men’s World Cups and is now working as part of the IRFU women’s pathway, is obsessed with lineouts so he’s part of that work.
Ex-Ireland scrum-half Larissa Muldoon is one of the four ‘national talent coaches’ who are central to these camps, so she drives the backs’ work on attacking shape on Thursday morning.
Outside these camps, Muldoon works in the two WNTS hubs in Connacht, with Niamh Briggs in charge of Munster, Matt Gill overseeing Leinster, and Neill Alcorn working in Ulster.
In this second session on Thursday afternoon, there is focused work on ‘collision craft,’ the players’ skills in the tackle, before they split into three groups – U18s, U20s, and Emerging – for a series of intense, loud training games. Friday’s double day will involve more position-specific work and those lively games.
“It has to be fun as well,” says ex-Ireland international Katie Fitzhenry, the WNTS and talent identification manager for the IRFU. Basically, she’s the boss of this camp.
The four WNTS athletic development coaches are present, one from each province, and multiple physios stand by for any injury issues. The Ireland U18s and Ireland U20s team managers are on site too.
These young players have already done a goal-setting session with Siobhain McArdle, the IRFU’s head of psychology, and will review their training performance with her afterwards. So lots of stones have been overturned.
“It has grown massively,” says Fitzhenry of the WNTS programme, which was made up of just 13 players when it was first announced. Current Ireland stars Dannah O’Brien and Aoife Dalton were part of that group.
“This is only up and running just over a year now. We’re starting to get a real handle on who’s out there, who’s playing what, we’re getting to more games. We have more people on the ground and more resources to do that.
“It’s only going to continue to grow and with the senior girls doing so well over at WXV, it excites these young girls even more to want to play.”
There are 80 players in the WNTS now.
Muldoon explains how the hubs in Connacht work, with 20 players from the western province involved in the WNTS. They come to their hub in either the University of Galway or ATU Sligo twice a week for strength and conditioning, skills sessions, individual analysis, and work on things like nutrition, injury prevention, and mental skills.
This comes on top of training with their clubs or schools, as well as any other sports they’re playing, so balance is important.
Muldoon outlines how a flagging system means coaches around the province can highlight players of clear potential. She works to build relationships with more coaches whose opinions she can trust. As soon as a player is flagged three times, Muldoon will visit her club to take a look. High-potential players join the WNTS.
“It is really clear now for young female athletes within the provinces that there is a pathway,” says Muldoon.
There are other hubs in Dublin City University and SETU Carlow for Leinster, the University of Limerick and University College Cork in Munster, and Queen’s University for Ulster.
For players who are as young as 16, this is comprehensive stuff. Simply put, it didn’t exist only a couple of years ago.
As in the men’s game, the IQ Rugby branch of the union is looking for Irish-qualified players based in the UK, with two of them involved in this training camp.
There was no Ireland U20s squad until last year but now they’re part of a new annual Summer Series, while the U18s play in the Six Nations Festival in early April. There is also an Ireland U18 Sevens side.
All of this is possible because the IRFU has stumped up the money. When Kevin Potts joined as CEO at the start of 2022, the union was reeling after a group of 62 current and former Irish players wrote to the government to express their loss of faith in IRFU.
Those were dark days for women’s rugby but the reaction since has been game-changing.
The IRFU’s investment into the women’s game went from €3.1 million in 2021 to €6.4 million last year and it’s understood that the next financial update will confirm another strong increase in funding for women’s rugby.
Part of that investment is going into professional women’s contracts which were launched in 2022, ranging from €15,000 to €30,000 per season. There were 37 professionally contracted players in the latest confirmed list, many of whom play 7s and 15s rugby.
It’s not life-changing money but the hope is that with the ongoing growth of women’s rugby, the remuneration will soon rise too.
The IRFU has stated its goal of having professional women’s teams in Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connacht in the next few years, with the provinces all on board.
That means a further expansion of the Celtic Challenge competition against Scottish and Welsh sides is likely, with two Irish development teams already playing in that now annual tournament.
So being a professional rugby player is a real prospect for the youngsters currently in the WNTS.
“The contracts are amazing because there’s that carrot dangling for these players,” says Muldoon.
It also helps that the senior Ireland team’s fortunes have changed under head coach Scott Bemand, his bulked-up coaching team, and their own improved resources. They have already benefitted from the work being done in the pathway.
Watching Ireland – who will be at next year’s World Cup – winning games against New Zealand, the USA, and Australia in recent months is highly motivating for the hopefuls in the pathway.
Bemand’s squad have a mantra of the ‘Green Wave,’ which they hope will inspire the next generation. In recent days, the players at this WNTS camp were rubbing shoulders with senior internationals in the IRFU’s high performance centre.
“It’s such a buzz,” says Muldoon. “Even the girls being here now, they were in the HPC chatting to Aoife Wafer yesterday.
“She’s saying she will come out and help, it’s so personable. But also they can see the next step, where they want to go. Everyone here is itching to be part of that.”
As well as the player development work, the women’s game is intent on upskilling young coaches like Muldoon, who is 33.
Back her distinguished playing days with Ireland, the Donegal woman worked as a development officer in Leinster and has more recently taken on roles with the Ireland U18s and U20s, Railway Union RFC, Trinity and DCU, as well as going through World Rugby’s High Performance Academy programme for female coaches. Muldoon has also worked as assistant backs and attack coach with Bemand’s senior Ireland squad.
She was appointed to her national talent coach role last year, taking up one of eight new full-time positions around the provinces, and has been working with Darragh Sheridan, the IRFU’s head of high performance coach development, to continue her development.
That led to a recent three-month placement as the backs coach with Canterbury in New Zealand from which Muldoon returned just last week.
She learned lots tactically and technically as a young Canterbury team unexpectedly reached the final of the Farah Palmer Cup, but some of the off-the-pitch stuff landed most.
Kiwi teams are big on ‘themeing,’ where everything they do is guided by a central theme. Each match week is driven by a certain word or message that relates to the overall theme.
“Our theme was ‘Moana,’ so it was all about the heart of the ocean,” says Muldoon. “Our thing was, ‘Grab your paddle and get on the waka [a Māori canoe].’
In the days after Muldoon arrived, Canterbury’s players were told there would be no rugby training. They had to meet at the port at 6am instead.
“We were basically taught about what the waka was, what it symbolises. We went out on the water and learned how to paddle as a team.
“You’re sitting there in the stillness of the water and we had to close our eyes and use our senses to feel if we were paddling too deep or too high, how you’d give that feedback. It was cool. Even talking about it gives me goosebumps.”
When they got back to shore, they had a big social event involving family and friends.
“The whānau, the family, is really important,” says Muldoon. “Team connection through kai, their food, is massive.
“Their theme is related to their sounds, their symbols, and I feel we as Irish people have that in us.
“It’s embedded in there somewhere but I feel we’ve lost a bit of that because we’re straight on rugby tasks, we forget the fun side of it, the musical side of it and how we bring people together.”
Clearly, it was a thought-provoking trip. Muldoon is keen to keep developing and hopes that other women in rugby can see that just as players can now pursue careers in rugby, so can coaches like her and Briggs.
The IRFU’s head of performance and pathways, Gillian McDarby, oversees all of this development work and Fitzhenry praises her leadership.
The union confirmed last week that legendary ex-Ireland centre Lynne Cantwell will join as its head of women’s strategy in January, returning from a similar role in South Africa.
“It’s really exciting,” says Fitzhenry. “She has shown what she can do with South Africa, they’ve gone from strength to strength.
“It’s really cool that it’s one of our own and someone who has been within the system.”
“For anyone, it’s a really exciting time to come into women’s rugby in Ireland.”
Perhaps the most exciting thing is that the likes of Fitzhenry and Muldoon say that all of this is in its infancy. They’re already dreaming of broader, deeper programmes across the country. They believe that this is only just the start.
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