DEIRBHILE NIC A Bháird doesn’t enjoy analysing her provincial or international teammates publicly, and so she takes comfort from the fact that the bulk of the punditry she has done while recovering from a torn ACL has been on TG4 where fewer people understand her.
Nonetheless, at a media gig launching the Tackle Your Feelings Schools App, she assesses Ireland’s disappointing Six Nations defeat to Italy as Béarla.
“We just went off-script and when you do that it becomes more frantic,” proposes Nic a Bháird, who has been ruled out of this year’s competition but remains integrated with the squad in Dublin as a centrally contracted player.
“The coaching staff had been pushing us at training, like you work at higher capacity than matchday and that will prep you for those intense situations.
“We were just missing those last few percentages. I’m not sure why, perfect conditions… We were in the driving seat for a good chunk of that game.”
Munster woman Nic a Bháird is still convinced from her first-hand experience in Abbotstown that Ireland have begun to move in the right direction under Scott Bemand.
One of the most striking positives from the campaign so far has been the explosion back onto the scene of Aoife Wafer, with whom Nic a Bháird may have to battle for a starting berth when her knee is fully rehabbed — by September, she hopes.
Wexford youngster Wafer knows Nic a Bháird’s pain, or at least a version of it: a ruptured hamstring and a series of related setbacks dictated that the 21-year-old had to wait more than a year and a half between her debut against Italy during the 2022 Six Nations and her second cap during the WXV 3 last October.
Nic a Bháird visibly marvels when Wafer’s name is broached, describing her as “a really well-rounded rugby player”.
“She’s so physical, she’s so determined,” Nic a Bháird adds of her fellow back row. “A real dogged attitude and loves to work.
“I’ll definitely have to [fight] for my position and she won’t be giving anything back easily,” the 28-year-old laughs. “But we’re in a privileged position to have that competition and it pushes me to look at what areas of my game have to stand out, and I hope it will push her to do the same.”
That closeness between Ireland’s players has helped Nic a Bháird — one of the few standout Irish performers during last year’s championship — to come to terms with missing the start of a new era in green.
Alongside the fact that she’s formally involved in match-week preparation while adhering to an individual injury-rehab programme, she jokes that she’s “tagging along all the time anyway even if they don’t want me to be.”
Still, the past six months, as Nic a Bháird has recovered from the first surgery of her 10-year rugby career, have been even harder than she had anticipated.
At times, she says, it’s been even tougher on her family, “because I have other tools, a team of players who have experienced things like this to help me through stages; the IRFU and RPI (Rugby Players Ireland) have provided resources from a sports-psychology and injury-psychology [perspective] that have been invaluable.
“There have been days where I’ve been broken by it for sure but if I didn’t have those resources and connections like Aoife Lane in RPI, I wouldn’t have found it as manageable.”
Absence has only made Nic a Bháird’s heart grow fonder for a sport which hasn’t always given back to her what she has put in.
It’s easy to forget that, before her eye-catching efforts during last year’s Six Nations, she hadn’t featured for Ireland in four years.
The tough reality for most of that time was that the Cork woman, who plays her club rugby with Old Belvedere in Dublin, wasn’t ready for international rugby — at least in the view of Ireland’s coaches.
Her remarkable turnaround only further fueled the sense of Murphy’s Law when her knee buckled beneath her back in September:
I was kind of joking darkly about it at the start, like, ‘Why couldn’t this have happened when I was useless?’
“Like, that whole four-year period of not being involved, I think only a year of that was by choice where I was like, ‘No, I don’t think anybody wants me to do this anymore, so maybe I’ll just give in.’
“I was really lucky to get back in with club at a time where I needed my club around me, at a time where I needed my teammates around me.
“Thankfully, that kind of reignited something in me that allowed me to enjoy it again. And I think for a really long period of my career, I was chasing a lot of stuff that possibly wasn’t achievable for me but also just wasn’t where the real reward is.
“I’ve definitely changed my focus around what it is that I’m doing this for. It doesn’t mean I’m less competitive, it doesn’t mean I have different goals as such, but I definitely get more out of the day-to-day than I used to.”
So, what is she doing it for? What changed?
“I think I realised that, well, number one: I love training,” Nic a Bháird says. “Like, how lucky I am to be doing this job and getting to call myself a professional rugby player.
“At the start of my career, I don’t think I knew that was a possibility. It wasn’t a possibility as far as 15s was concerned. Even the Sevens programme at the time was less professional than it is now in the sense of being able to do it full-time.
“So, in terms of the opportunity, I think I’ve come to terms with how lucky I am.
“I’ve gotten a bit older, a bit more mature as well. I’m enjoying the competing for a spot as opposed to just the results of getting there.”
“It took, maybe, a bit longer than it needed to”, Nic a Bháird laughs, “but there’s a certain joy in that by itself.”
Munster and Ireland’s Deirbhile Nic a Bháird was speaking at the launch of the Tackle Your Feelings Schools App (iOS/Android) on behalf of Rugby Players Ireland.
