WHEN A SHIP starts to sink, there’s usually only one outcome. Hence the pessimism around the Ireland women’s squad this time two years ago.
A slow, steady decline was showing no signs of stopping. The disappointment of missing out on qualification for the 2021 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand (held in 2022) was lingering into the next cycle – Ireland showing signs of a World Cup hangover without even being at the party. They finished bottom of the 2023 Six Nations with zero points to their name. Across their five outings in that championship Ireland shipped 192 points and scored just 25, a negative points difference of -167 almost double that of fifth-place Italy (90).
Problems on the pitch were worsened by tensions off it. Following a report in The Telegraph that claimed a prominent figure in Irish rugby was heard asking “Who gives a fuck about women’s rugby?” during an IRFU president’s dinner in Dublin, flyers displaying the words ‘I Give A Fuck’ were distributed to supporters during Ireland’s meeting with England at Musgrave Park. It was an ugly mess, which arrived less than 18 months after 62 current and former Ireland internationals wrote to the Irish government expressing their loss of trust and confidence in the IRFU.
It would be fair to ask why anyone would want to insert themselves into the middle of such a mess. Yet after Greg McWilliams’ tenure as Ireland boss came to an unfortunate but expected end in the summer of 2023, the appointment of former England coach Scott Bemand seemed something of a coup. The upturn in fortunes since has dramatically changed the feeling around the women’s team, with the introduction of IRFU pro contracts for women’s 15s players for the first time in 2022 also starting to bear fruit as Bemand got to work. The IRFU spent €8.3million on the women’s game across the 2023/24 season. In 2022 that figure stood at €5.5m.
Yet Bemand faced challenges as soon as he signed up. For a start, he had to replace outgoing captain Nichola Fryday, who decided to retire from international rugby at the age of just 28. He’d also have to negotiate the first year of his reign with limited access to some of the most talented players in the country, with the 2024 Paris Olympics taking precedence for those who split their commitments with playing Sevens rugby – although it was a better balance than McWilliams had enjoyed.
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
The Bemand era would get off to a low-key start, with the team competing in the third tier of the newly-launched WXV competition. The first outing brought a comprehensive 109-0 thrashing of Kazakhstan – a somewhat strange experience for Bemand given he’d spent time coaching Kazakhstan not long before – and was followed by wins against Colombia and Spain to claim the first WVX3 title.
A promising start, but the real tests lay ahead. In the 2024 Six Nations Ireland bettered their wooden spoon return 12 months previously with a third place finish, although a harrowing 88-10 loss in England served as a reminder of the gap between Ireland and the game’s elite. Still, that third-place return also saw the team achieve the aim of qualifying for this year’s World Cup.
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The start of the 2024/25 season would herald another a major step, helped by the return of Sevens stars such as Stacey Flood and Amee-Leigh Costigan. A memorable autumn started with an impressive 36-10 defeat of Australia in a one-off IRFU anniversary clash in Belfast. Two weeks later, Ireland delivered their statement performance of the Bemand era so far, beating New Zealand in their opening game of the 2024 WXV1. Ireland built on that success with a win over the USA, after defeat to Canada, to finish second to England in the table, an almost unthinkable jump from their WXV3 campaign a year previously.
Another third place finish followed in the 2025 Six Nations, and while a frustrating loss to Scotland proved a sore point, the signs of further development were there.
And all the while, Bemand kept pushing the group. Team selections have remained interesting, with the former Harlequins, Leicester and Bath scrum-half happy to make changes even on the back of strong team performances. On the training pitch, a big focus has gone into making all aspects of training competitive and putting more time into replicating potential in-game scenarios. The English native has also noted the multi-sport background of many of his players and looked to utilise those different skill-sets in how his team play, with the kicking game of out-half and former Carlow Gaelic footballer Dannah O’Brien perhaps the clearest example.
Not that it’s all been plain sailing. Earlier this summer defence coach Hugh Hogan departed in a move that wasn’t popular with the players. Hogan had only taken over from Declan Danaher last summer. Hogan’s replacement, James Scaysbrook, has quickly settled in but some rough edges were evident in the World Cup warm-up games against Scotland and Canada.
James Scaysbrook Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
Having taken over an Ireland team ranked 11th in the world, Bemand’s team were now up to fifth as they faced into their first World Cup in eight years. Yet a renewed sense of optimism has since been tempered by a series of setbacks. Erin King, a standout player across her breakthrough season, was ruled out of the tournament in April due to a knee injury. Just days later, Dorothy Wall, a consistent presence since her debut in 2020, saw her World Cup ambitions ended by an Achilles injury. There also remains concerns around Aoife Wafer, who earlier this year became the first Irish women to be named Women’s Six Nations Player of the Season. The influential flanker will sit out Ireland’s opening game against Japan today and is in a race to be fit for the pool closer against New Zealand (7 September).
And still, Ireland step into the tournament with realistic ambitions of reaching the quarter-finals, and perhaps even dipping a little further into the knockouts.
Bemand’s team will be expected to win against Japan in Northampton [KO 12pm, RTÉ 2], a team ranked 11th in the world and largely made up of amatuer players, but one who feel they go into the competition with their strongest ever squad.
“They’re a good team,” Bemand says of Japan. “They’re well disciplined, well organised, strong coaching group, so we’re anticipating seeing some stuff we’ve not seen from them before. Pacy, skilful. We’ve picked a team to get our best game out there.
“We think we’ve got the selection right to begin the game, and we think we’ve got energy and impact to bring on. We want to hit our straps sooner in games. If we can do that, we can get momentum.”
After Japan it’s Spain in seven days time, also in Northampton. Spain are 13th in the rankings but have plenty to play for. The Spanish players were given six-month playing contracts for the lead-in to the World Cup and hope to see that become a more permanent arrangement after the tournament.
Win those first two games and the pressure can largely be off Ireland heading into the blockbuster final pool clash against New Zealand, where a bumper crowd is expected at the home of Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion.
Ireland know a second-place finish in the pool will likely set-up a quarter-final meeting with France, while Italy would be the expected opponents should Bemand’s team manage to top the pool.
These are the ifs, buts and maybes that only come into the equation if Ireland look after the job at hand. Given the improvement under Bemand’s watch, anything other than a winning start in Northampton today would be seen as a major disappointment. A highly positive two-year run has all been building up to this.
“We’ve been together as this group now for two years,” says Bemand.
“We’ve continued to evolve our game, evolve strategies and evolve depth. We’re in the right space, the right condition physically, we now need to put it into game mode.”
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Two-year journey with Bemand leads Ireland back to World Cup stage
WHEN A SHIP starts to sink, there’s usually only one outcome. Hence the pessimism around the Ireland women’s squad this time two years ago.
A slow, steady decline was showing no signs of stopping. The disappointment of missing out on qualification for the 2021 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand (held in 2022) was lingering into the next cycle – Ireland showing signs of a World Cup hangover without even being at the party. They finished bottom of the 2023 Six Nations with zero points to their name. Across their five outings in that championship Ireland shipped 192 points and scored just 25, a negative points difference of -167 almost double that of fifth-place Italy (90).
Problems on the pitch were worsened by tensions off it. Following a report in The Telegraph that claimed a prominent figure in Irish rugby was heard asking “Who gives a fuck about women’s rugby?” during an IRFU president’s dinner in Dublin, flyers displaying the words ‘I Give A Fuck’ were distributed to supporters during Ireland’s meeting with England at Musgrave Park. It was an ugly mess, which arrived less than 18 months after 62 current and former Ireland internationals wrote to the Irish government expressing their loss of trust and confidence in the IRFU.
It would be fair to ask why anyone would want to insert themselves into the middle of such a mess. Yet after Greg McWilliams’ tenure as Ireland boss came to an unfortunate but expected end in the summer of 2023, the appointment of former England coach Scott Bemand seemed something of a coup. The upturn in fortunes since has dramatically changed the feeling around the women’s team, with the introduction of IRFU pro contracts for women’s 15s players for the first time in 2022 also starting to bear fruit as Bemand got to work. The IRFU spent €8.3million on the women’s game across the 2023/24 season. In 2022 that figure stood at €5.5m.
Yet Bemand faced challenges as soon as he signed up. For a start, he had to replace outgoing captain Nichola Fryday, who decided to retire from international rugby at the age of just 28. He’d also have to negotiate the first year of his reign with limited access to some of the most talented players in the country, with the 2024 Paris Olympics taking precedence for those who split their commitments with playing Sevens rugby – although it was a better balance than McWilliams had enjoyed.
The Bemand era would get off to a low-key start, with the team competing in the third tier of the newly-launched WXV competition. The first outing brought a comprehensive 109-0 thrashing of Kazakhstan – a somewhat strange experience for Bemand given he’d spent time coaching Kazakhstan not long before – and was followed by wins against Colombia and Spain to claim the first WVX3 title.
A promising start, but the real tests lay ahead. In the 2024 Six Nations Ireland bettered their wooden spoon return 12 months previously with a third place finish, although a harrowing 88-10 loss in England served as a reminder of the gap between Ireland and the game’s elite. Still, that third-place return also saw the team achieve the aim of qualifying for this year’s World Cup.
The start of the 2024/25 season would herald another a major step, helped by the return of Sevens stars such as Stacey Flood and Amee-Leigh Costigan. A memorable autumn started with an impressive 36-10 defeat of Australia in a one-off IRFU anniversary clash in Belfast. Two weeks later, Ireland delivered their statement performance of the Bemand era so far, beating New Zealand in their opening game of the 2024 WXV1. Ireland built on that success with a win over the USA, after defeat to Canada, to finish second to England in the table, an almost unthinkable jump from their WXV3 campaign a year previously.
Another third place finish followed in the 2025 Six Nations, and while a frustrating loss to Scotland proved a sore point, the signs of further development were there.
And all the while, Bemand kept pushing the group. Team selections have remained interesting, with the former Harlequins, Leicester and Bath scrum-half happy to make changes even on the back of strong team performances. On the training pitch, a big focus has gone into making all aspects of training competitive and putting more time into replicating potential in-game scenarios. The English native has also noted the multi-sport background of many of his players and looked to utilise those different skill-sets in how his team play, with the kicking game of out-half and former Carlow Gaelic footballer Dannah O’Brien perhaps the clearest example.
Not that it’s all been plain sailing. Earlier this summer defence coach Hugh Hogan departed in a move that wasn’t popular with the players. Hogan had only taken over from Declan Danaher last summer. Hogan’s replacement, James Scaysbrook, has quickly settled in but some rough edges were evident in the World Cup warm-up games against Scotland and Canada.
Having taken over an Ireland team ranked 11th in the world, Bemand’s team were now up to fifth as they faced into their first World Cup in eight years. Yet a renewed sense of optimism has since been tempered by a series of setbacks. Erin King, a standout player across her breakthrough season, was ruled out of the tournament in April due to a knee injury. Just days later, Dorothy Wall, a consistent presence since her debut in 2020, saw her World Cup ambitions ended by an Achilles injury. There also remains concerns around Aoife Wafer, who earlier this year became the first Irish women to be named Women’s Six Nations Player of the Season. The influential flanker will sit out Ireland’s opening game against Japan today and is in a race to be fit for the pool closer against New Zealand (7 September).
And still, Ireland step into the tournament with realistic ambitions of reaching the quarter-finals, and perhaps even dipping a little further into the knockouts.
Bemand’s team will be expected to win against Japan in Northampton [KO 12pm, RTÉ 2], a team ranked 11th in the world and largely made up of amatuer players, but one who feel they go into the competition with their strongest ever squad.
“They’re a good team,” Bemand says of Japan. “They’re well disciplined, well organised, strong coaching group, so we’re anticipating seeing some stuff we’ve not seen from them before. Pacy, skilful. We’ve picked a team to get our best game out there.
“We think we’ve got the selection right to begin the game, and we think we’ve got energy and impact to bring on. We want to hit our straps sooner in games. If we can do that, we can get momentum.”
After Japan it’s Spain in seven days time, also in Northampton. Spain are 13th in the rankings but have plenty to play for. The Spanish players were given six-month playing contracts for the lead-in to the World Cup and hope to see that become a more permanent arrangement after the tournament.
Win those first two games and the pressure can largely be off Ireland heading into the blockbuster final pool clash against New Zealand, where a bumper crowd is expected at the home of Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion.
Ireland know a second-place finish in the pool will likely set-up a quarter-final meeting with France, while Italy would be the expected opponents should Bemand’s team manage to top the pool.
These are the ifs, buts and maybes that only come into the equation if Ireland look after the job at hand. Given the improvement under Bemand’s watch, anything other than a winning start in Northampton today would be seen as a major disappointment. A highly positive two-year run has all been building up to this.
“We’ve been together as this group now for two years,” says Bemand.
“We’ve continued to evolve our game, evolve strategies and evolve depth. We’re in the right space, the right condition physically, we now need to put it into game mode.”
IRELAND: Stacey Flood; Béibhinn Parsons, Aoife Dalton, Eve Higgins, Amee-Leigh Costigan; Dannah O’Brien, Aoibheann Reilly; Niamh O’Dowd, Neve Jones, Linda Djougang; Ruth Campbell, Sam Monaghan (co-capt); Fiona Tuite, Edel McMahon (co-capt), Brittany Hogan.
Replacements: Clíodhna Moloney-MacDonald, Ellena Perry, Sadhbh McGrath, Eimear Corri-Fallon, Grace Moore, Emily Lane, Enya Breen, Anna McGann.
Replacements: Kotomi Taniguchi, Manami Mine, Nijiho Nagata, Ayano Sakurai, Kyoko Hosokawa, Megumi Abe, Minori Yamamoto, Sakurako Hatada.
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