The problem with being ahead of your time is that you don't always get to live it. For 10 years, Fiona Coghlan played rugby without the slightest inkling this was also the time her sport fast-forwarded on its past and lived in the present. That doesn't mean there isn't still some catching up to do.
“We’ve certainly come a long way in a short space of time,” says Coghlan. “But there’s still a long way to go in terms of exposure, getting more crowds, getting more women involved. And for recognising women’s sport for what it is. If it’s a good game, it’s a good game, and it doesn’t matter who is playing it.”
During those 10 years, Coghlan had no inkling either that her rugby career would become a sort of microcosm of the way women's sport has developed in Ireland: from little or no exposure, to suddenly improving crowds, to now ever-increasing involvement. After retiring last year, with 85 international caps, the highlight being captaining Ireland to its first Six Nations Grand Slam in 2013, she's also eminently qualified to identify ways of furthering that development, not just in comparison to men's sport.
Comparisons
Coghlan was delivering the keynote address at a day-long conference at Dublin Castle, entitled: 'Women and girls in sport in Ireland: Let's level the playing field'. Jointly organised by the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Transport, Tourism, and Sport, the purpose was to recognise women's sport for what it is, as well as for what it's not, although again not just by drawing comparisons with the men.
Of course, some comparisons were inevitable. Earlier on, Dr Anne Looney, chief executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, highlighted the fact that according to a recent survey of Australian sport (it being the modal of a sporting-mad nation), 81 per cent of their media coverage centred on men's sport and the remaining 19 per cent on women's. However, that 19 per cent of women's media coverage was unanimously successful or positive. That perhaps was more damning a statistic. Why shouldn't women's sport be criticised in the same way as men's is?
Coghlan pointed to this disparity too, when recounting her gradual rise through the ranks with the Irish women's rugby team. For years they got no media coverage whatsoever; when they won the 2013 Six Nations, there were inundated with it (including an appearance on the Late Late Show); then, after beating New Zealand to make the 2014 World Cup semi-finals, only to be heavily beaten by England, they found themselves glamorised by still glowing reports, when actually they'd been given a thoroughly hard beating.
“We weren’t happy getting beaten like that, against England,” she says. “And some of the media were still describing us as an overnight success, when it actually had taken me 10 years. And there were people before me, too, who had done so much to develop women’s rugby and didn’t enjoy any success.
“But since that World Cup, in 2014, the IRFU has taken on the women’s team under the high performance, so they have an all-year programme. We also have autumn internationals now. And they’ve taken to hosting the 2017 World Cup. So all of that is encouraging, to have something of that context, not just for Irish women’s rugby but Irish women’s sport.”
Coghlan only started out in women’s rugby at 19, having played several sports at school in Dublin (“a jack of all, master of none”): moving to Limerick to study physical education, she fell into the sport by accident rather than design, although the respect she found for the sport within the Bohemians-University of Limerick club proved life-changing.
“It wasn’t just a ticking-the-box exercise. They got the right people in, the right coaching, and gave us exactly the same support as the men. If they got gear, we got gear. If they got buses to games, we got buses to games. I continued playing for the club for 10 years, even after I moved back to the Dublin, because the team had respect. I know some clubs, now, still don’t give the respect to women.”
Women’s rugby players, in her case anyway, were treated every bit as normal as the men – and this “normalisation” of women’s sport in general, she says, is critical is levelling that playing field of the conference title.
“First I think we need to normalise sport, in women’s lives. And then normalise women’s sport in Irish society. A lot of people play a role in that. Media is just one area. Sponsorship is also huge. Role models too, and we have enough of those doing their job. It’s about exposing them.”
