Irish women’s rugby tackling global rankings

Promoters of Irish women’s rugby are hoping that the recent series of impressive wins by the international team will bring a surge of interest from girls and young women in playing the game.

Just two years ago, Ireland had a series of dreadful results, failing even to qualify for the World Cup held in 2022.  In the last three months, they have beaten New Zealand, the USA, and Australia. They have risen from tenth place in the world rankings as recently as September, to fifth place today.

“This is really important for drawing young player to the game,” says Sarah Fallon, head of women’s rugby at St Mary’s RFC.  “It’s not just the results, but we are seeing the emergence of young Irish superstars like Aoife Wafer and Erin King and some others.  These young women are become role models for women in sport. Their brilliance will reduce the stigma of playing contact sports for women, particularly rugby.”

There are signs now that women’s rugby may become not just more acceptable, but even “cool”.  Former Leinster under 18 player, Laoise Devlin, says her friends used to think her involvement in rugby was a bit unusual, and she didn’t tell everyone about it with pride. But now, she says:  “I remember staying up late the night the women were playing the Black Ferns.  I didn’t really expect us to win as we haven’t won against them for like ten years.  When the final whistle blew, and we had won against them I remember reposting the score on my Instagram story.  This was probably the first time I have ever reposted anything to do with women’s rugby.  I was delighted to feel part of it.”

Since the Women’s WXV campaign the draw for the Women’s World Cup, due to be held in England in 2025, has been completed. Ireland face a challenging but hopeful pool including Japan, New Zealand and Spain.

“I think that the Irish women’s team did very well in their last campaign and they have so much room to grow as well as so much potential to do very well in their next campaign,” Michelle Nadine, a promising young player for the top AIL team, Railway Union says. “A lot of this would be depending on whether they get the funding from the IRFU, which in my opinion is looking quite promising  for the 2025 World Cup, considering how they’ve come on leaps and bounds in the past year.”

Only last June, the IRFU published a strategic plan for Irish rugby for the next five years. A central part of this is about growing the women’s game, investing more and increasing the number of players. The results of the last few months could not have come at a better time to help the IRFU achieve this.