IRELAND FORWARD HANNAH O’Connor has announced her retirement from international and provincial rugby after Leinster clinched back-to-back interpro titles in Belfast on Saturday.
Leinster captain O’Connor informed her teammates of her decision earlier this week and confirmed it publicly after her side’s 27-7 success over Munster at Kingspan Stadium.
O’Connor, 34, had since 2018 been an ever-present for Leinster until injury ruled her out of Saturday’s decider. In addition to 18 caps for her province, O’Connor earned 21 for Ireland.
While stepping away from rugby with her province and national team, O’Connor will remain involved with her club, Blackrock.
More recently renowned as a back-five forward, O’Connor also played out-half and centre and was an excellent kicker from the tee.
She finished the 2020 AIL campaign as the leading points scorer and was named the Player of the Year. She had taken up the sport only six years previously.
O’Connor made her full Ireland debut against Wales in November 2019 and won the last of her 21 Irish caps during the 2024 Six Nations campaign.
Throughout her career, she won four interprovincial series with Leinster and one AIL title.
Great to see. Now perhaps the FAI give more attention to the L of I than they have since JD took them under his broken wing.
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: Exactly. Imagine how good it’d be if the FAI actually bothered to fund it properly and the government gave a band, like they do the GAA, to make the stadia better and more attractive to people who are put off by crumbling old grounds and shytty away ends, as well as some whole stadia, without proper facilities
@Jonny Hellzapoppin: *hand
@Jonny Hellzapoppin: Yeah give them some of the funding that the national rugby team get for never winning a knockout game at the world cup.
The so called ‘problem child’ should be the golden child.
You look at nations with similar populations to us like Denmark, Croatia, Scotland and say Belgium with a population of about 11m. It is completely normal for them to have teams in the champions league group stages.
The Scottish league is very strong from its population size even excluding the big 2. Again it wouldn’t be strange to see Celtic or Rangers in the champions league group stages.
Quinn and Kerr were calling out for infrastructure funding a couple of years ago. The government probably doesn’t trust the FAI enough yet to cough up the cash. That’s what’s need here.
What I found interesting as well is that we are currently ranked 27th of the European international teams and could be about to drop. The stats of 28th and 30th out of 54 for certain areas in the report pretty directly align to our fifa ranking versus the other European teams.
I’ve always felt that the only way back for Irish football is through strengthening the national league. When Munster and Leinster were first playing professionally they only had 500 – 1,000 but it grew quickly when the results were good.
We’ll never be a top 5 league but we can significantly climb the ladder from where we currently are.
@Joe O’Regan: agree 100%. The Govt could incentivize wealthy private individuals to invest in these clubs. Capital Gains from club revenue could be tax free, in addition give substantial tax subsidies for any capital invested into an LOI club. Could also allow multinationals to get additional tax benefits based on local investment in LOI.
@Owen ODonoghue: some very clever ideas there Owen. With the premier league now a massive global league and the impact on Brexit stopping our lads heading over before 18, the need to develop our domestic league and infrastructure is even great now.
@Joe O’Regan: spot on!!
According to some of the people on here no one cares, especially about the likes of Shamrock Rovers. Suppose they”ll all be on here in a minute still harping on about it.
@zoncolan: yeah, an average 16.5k fans or 1/3 of a % of the country go to a league of Ireland on a weekend. Well done, that is more than no one
@John Buckley: Could be worse. I could be going watchin rugby. The only sport that i know were booting the ball over the sideline or up into the stand is classed as a skill.
@zoncolan: you’re a dab hand at a 50 22 then. I guess you nail them every time?