JUST SHY OF the hour mark in Ireland’s 57-22 comeback victory over Japan, inside centre Enya Breen fired an exquisite flat pass from right to left, and debutante Méabh Deely was away again.
That the 21-year-old Galway woman took it to the house from halfway without breaking stride was a microcosm of her quick rise through the Ireland sevens programme and the Women’s AIL with Blackrock.
But just because she has made a lot of her ascent look easy doesn’t mean Deely takes for granted the milestone moments, in this case a try on her maiden outing as an Ireland XVs player and, by extension, a landmark result in Shizuoka.
“Everyone came running at me,” she recalls. “I didn’t expect it at all. The whole team comes and hugs you, it’s an ecstatic feeling, it’s amazing.
“What I was really proud of was that we turned around and didn’t get our heads down. I think, especially with such a new group, and new caps, we were thinking we really had to step up, and I think we did really well.”
In all, six players made their Ireland debuts during Saturday’s biggest ever comeback win for the women’s national team. Four started in Greg McWilliams’ backline, while two more came off the bench in the pack.
It was the more senior players like Nichola Fryday, Dorothy Wall and Edel McMahon, Deely says, who “gave us so much confidence”, and there is a familiarity among many of the younger heads which is belied by their relative inexperience in the longer code.
“I didn’t feel like there was much pressure on us”, says the fullback, “and especially with Aoife Dalton and Natasja Behan, us being 13-14-15; I’ve known them for quite a while and have played a lot of sevens and club rugby with them both. They weren’t new to me.
“It was easy to go with them. Same with Enya: I’ve played with her since I was underage. Even though we were a new group, we had a lot of experience together. I think Greg just gave us so much confidence, and that really helped because I knew there wasn’t much pressure on me. Same with Niamh Briggs, it was just nice to have that backing.
“The only people who were new to me were Dannah [O'Brien], Ailsa [Hughes] and Aoife Doyle on the wing, but we came together really well.
“There is a real connection in the group with the older and younger girls. Everyone gets on so well and the more experienced girls have accepted the new girls in and given us so much backing and so much confidence to go out there and play, and that really made the difference.”
Back home on the Galway-Roscommon border, there are further personal connections about which Irish rugby fans can be excited to see materialise in green in the near future.
Indeed, one can’t help but look at Deely’s performance with ball in hand on Saturday and rub hands together at the extent to which her game should complement that of her old schoolmate and future Ireland back-three partner, just as it does at AIL level with Blackrock.
And a third friend from Ballinasloe may well get the ball rolling for the other two — when she’s not having a snipe herself — in due course.
“There have been a lot of messages from home,” Deely says. “Rugby is huge there. I went to school with Beibhinn Parsons and Aoibheann Reilly and I’ve been friends with them for so long, and they’re so happy for me.
“I’ve seen them do so much, and have been so happy for them, and it’s great to have the backing from them. There’ve been so many messages from home and I love it.
“I’ve been through the underage systems with [Parsons and Reilly], and it’s great to have the ‘home’ there. I don’t remember not knowing them, I’ve known them for that long. Beibhinn is an incredible player, I look up to her so much and I can go to her for advice on and off the pitch, and the same with Aoibheann.”
