DOROTHY WALL HAS been handed her first start for Ireland as Adam Griggs names his starting XV for Saturday’s Women’s Six Nations clash against Italy in Donnybrook.
The returning Claire Molloy — set to earn her 70th cap — and skipper Ciara Griffin will join Wall in the back row.
Hannah Tyrell is handed the 10 jersey for the first time in the campaign while Enya Breen is at 13 alongside Sene Naoupu.
Neve Jones, Katie O’Dwyer, and Brittany Hogan are in line for their senior international debuts off the bench meanwhile.
“I think the beauty of what we’ve got now is such a competitive wider squad and some of those selections weren’t as straight forward as you think,” says Griggs. “Some of those players who’ve missed out can take credit for how hard they’ve pushed these girls.”
Ireland won their first two outings in the tournament, earlier this year, against Scotland and Wales before losing heavily to England.
Remarking on the break that Ireland have had to reset since that loss to England, Griggs added that it offers more motivation to his players heading into Saturday’s clash.
“We were lucky. While it was our last game, it wasn’t our last time together. We were able to have training camps after that so we did our due diligence, we analysed where we went wrong and the beauty of it now is that you can use that as a little bit of fuel for the fire that that was the last time this group of players were in the green jersey and we didn’t get the result that we wanted.
“We certainly knew there were parts of our performance that could have been better, so in terms of what we have learned from it, we’ll take those forward this weekend. It’s a different opposition this weekend and with so much that’s gone on in the last six or seven months, we’re very much looking forward to this one.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused some disruptions for Ireland’s training regime, and like other sports teams, they’ve had limited time to prepare for these final Six Nations outings.
“It’s definitely going to be challenging,” he said, “there’s no doubt about it. What we’ve been able to do in training with a wider squad has been very competitive and we’ve been able to have internal games. but there’s no doubt you can’t replicate Test matches in training.
“It will certainly be something that the girls will all get a feel for in the first 10 minutes of this, the lungs will be burning, the full contact aspect of it.”
Ireland XV to face Italy:
15. Eimear Considine
14. Lauren Delany
13. Enya Breen
12. Sene Naoupu
11. Béibhinn Parsons
10. Hannah Tyrrell
9. Kathryn Dane
1. Lindsay Peat
2. Cliodhna Moloney
3. Linda Djougang
4. Nichola Fryday
5. Ciara Cooney
6. Dorothy Wall
7. Claire Molloy
8. Ciara Griffin
Replacements:
16. Neve Jones
17. Katie O’Dwyer
18. Laura Feely
19. Brittany Hogan
20. Hannah O’Connor
21. Ailsa Hughes
22. Larissa Muldoon
23. Katie Fitzhenry
More to follow
