ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT Nichola Fryday was named Women’s XVs Player of the Year at the annual Rugby Writers of Ireland awards at the Guinness Storehouse.
It was a welcome accolade after what was a challenging year for Fryday, who called time on her international career following the 2023 Six Nations. The Offaly native captained Ireland through some difficult campaigns, her time in green ending after a series of deflating defeats and a winless Six Nations.
Yet since making her debut in 2016 Fryday proved an outstanding player for Ireland at Test level, winning 34 caps and representing her county on home soil at the 2017 World Cup. Last year was a testing one in terms of results but Fryday still led by example, her efforts landing her the top award at last night’s ceremony in Dublin.
“When I think of the people who have won it in the past and then the girls who were up for nomination as well, it really could have been any of us, for me to win it after announcing my retirement it really is a nice way for me to finish out,” Fryday said.
“When I look back at who has won it in the past I always admired those players both on and off the pitch so to win the award it really does mean a lot to me.”
Fryday stepped away from the international game at the age of just 28 but is still going strong with Exeter in the Allianz Premiership. Having announced her retirement last July, she has now had time to reflect on one of the toughest periods of her career, with Ireland losing all five games in last year’s Six Nations.
It was a tough tournament. It is very easy to say you are going to tune out everything that is said about you on the papers or online but the reality is that we all live in a world where we see everything every day, on our phones, so that is just not possible.
“It was tough. It was tough but you can never question anyone’s dedication to what we were trying to do and it wasn’t a case that we were going out to intentionally get the results we got or perform to the level we wanted to get to.
“You couldn’t fault anyone’s heart or desire to be there and to keep fighting and that was the thing that drove a lot of us on. No-one was throwing in the towel. We were all in it and we were in it together and we weren’t going to be giving up.”
When the team regrouped after the summer they found themselves preparing for the third tier of the newly-formed WXV tournament. In a lop-sided competition, Ireland – led by new head coach Scott Bemand – thrashed Kazakhstan and Colombia before narrowly defeating Spain on their way to winning the tournament.
Watching on from home, Fryday had no regrets about her decision to close that chapter of her rugby life.
“When you retire you do think about that next tournament and you are worried will I feel regret or will I feel I gave it up too early, that I could have done more, but when the girls went off I was excited for them and really wanted them to do well but I knew that I had my the right choice for me and I’m content with that.
From the beginning, when I come up to Ireland, it was always going to be something that was an amazing experience but for me I feel it has to come to an end at some stage.
“I do have career goals that I want to push on with now. Everything outside of rugby as well, all those years of not making weddings or birthdays or your family side of things.
“There comes a time when you want to put your focus back on those things and it may be a bit selfish because I am still quite early in my playing career but I feel for me like I have given everything that I could do to Ireland and now its about putting the focus back all the people that supported me throughout those years and giving everything to them that they gave to me.
“My career side of things I do want to focus on as well. I am really starting to focus on myself for a few years.”
It proved to be quite the journey for the second row, who took up the sport for the social aspect while at boarding school and went all the way to captaining her country. In 2022 the IRFU became the last of the Six Nations unions to offer full-time contracts to their women’s 15s players. With her life in England having joined Exeter in 2021, Fryday didn’t take up the option of a full-time contract but saw it as a positive step.
Yet given how the last few years have unfolded, she acknowledges there is still plenty of ground to make up.
“We are at that stage where we will start to catch up and we have to start to catch up, otherwise we will get left behind. The Celtic tournament that is happening at the moment, you have seen the results. The fact that there are two [Irish] teams is giving girls exposure to a higher level of rugby that they haven’t had before so that can only be seen as a positive.
“The next year or two will take a lot of hard work but I know that the group of girls that are there are capable of it and can do it. It’s just going to be about how we progress over the next few years because we have to catch up. The likes of England and the rest are pushing on and we can’t get left behind any longer.”
