Gillian McDarby, the IRFU head of women’s performance and pathways, has admitted that whoever succeeds Greg McWilliams as head coach of the Ireland women’s team faces “a challenging role”.
The former Irish cyclist, who has served as manager of both the Irish cycling and rugby teams, stressed that McWilliams’s departure was “by mutual consent” and, as to his replacement, added: “We want to get the best candidate that’s out there. That’s the straight answer”.
“It’ll be a challenging role, given everything that’s gone on,” McDarby admitted. “If somebody wants a challenge, absolutely. It’ll be a high-profile role given that the game is growing and growing. We want somebody who can make a mark and make a difference.”
McDarby also admitted that for Ireland to potentially win the Six Nations “you’re probably looking at three/four/five years”, while IRFU chief executive Kevin Potts said “qualification for Rugby World Cup 2025 is the top priority and we will do absolutely everything we can to make that a reality”.
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The women’s team will be among six countries competing in Tier 3 of World Rugby’s new WXV in a September/October window later this year, which they would need to win in order to secure promotion to Tier 2 – an important step toward that RWC 2025 target.
Conspicuous by his absence at Wednesday’s Women in Rugby report press briefing at the IRFU High Performance Centre was the IRFU’s high performance director, David Nucifora, who is with the Irish women’s Sevens team in Toulouse as they, and the men’s team, seek to secure qualification for next year’s Olympics in the weekend’s final leg of the World series.
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McDarby admitted that the joint demands of the 15s and Sevens teams was also “quite challenging” given the “small depth of players” and particularly so this year, but that qualification for the Olympics would boost women’s rugby in Ireland,
It’s also worth noting that the Sevens players would become available to the 15s side in this year’s inaugural WXV 3, with the interpros serving as a preparatory competition.
The performances of the Irish under-18s team in the recent Six Nations Under-18s festival under Larissa Muldoon – when beating Italy and Scotland, losing in the last play against Wales, and competing strongly against France and England – were a source of encouragement.
The Union is also discussing the creation of an under-20s team to compete in friendly tournaments this summer, bearing in mind the Six Nations is exploring an under-20 championship next year.
Underpinning all of this, of course, is increasing the playing base (the number of women’s adult players is just over 3,000) and a stronger competitive model.
The independent Women in Rugby report, published last December, recommended that the Women’s All-Ireland League be restructured from nine teams to two divisions of six apiece.
However, as a result of seemingly tortuous dialogue with the clubs – judging by the 10-minute address on the issue from Fiona Steed, the IRFU’s chair of the women’s subcommittee – and a failure to find agreement on the AIL’s format, a top-flight of nine clubs will seemingly remain next season.
There will be an increased, home-and-away, 16-game regular season format. Only one of these rounds will clash with the Celtic Challenge, along with three AIL Cup weekends.
The poor standard of the new Celtic Challenge involving composite sides from Ireland, Wales and Scotland before the Six Nations made it unfit for purpose. But McDarby maintained that the Welsh and the Scots would be more committed to the competition, all the more so given the forthcoming stipulations regarding a set quota of, potentially, 15 English-qualified players in a match-day squad for Premiership games may reduce the number of Welsh and Scottish players based there.
McDarby was “very sure” the Celtic Challenge will increase in quality “because I’m meeting them [SRU and WRU] week on week... and World Rugby have put in a considerable amount of investment within this. So, it’s going to work.”
While effusive in her congratulations of the women’s football team in qualifying for the World Cup, McDarby made it clear that the IRFU’s aim was to have a home-based national team rather than one largely drawn from professional clubs in England.
As part of their €6.4 million investment in women’s rugby, the union also announced the appointment of eight new Women’s National Talent Squad (WNTS) pathway staff to be based at five provincial centre of excellence hubs, and an athletic performance coach and pathway talent coach to each of the four provinces.
They are Matt Gill (talent coach) and Greg Hollins (athletic performance coach) in Leinster; Ireland assistant coach Niamh Briggs (talent coach) and Lorna Barry (athletic performance coach) in Munster; Neil Alcorn (talent coach) and Paul Heasley (athletic performance coach) in Ulster; and the aforementioned Muldoon (talent coach) and Ann Caffrey (athletic performance coach) in Connacht.
Potts stressed that “our commitment to the women’s game is unwavering” and, despite recent adverse publicity, said: “Certainly, in the organisation that I’m leading, sexism isn’t a problem.”
Overseeing the union’s work will be a new women’s advisory group comprising three independent experts in women’s rugby and/or women’s sport, and will, according to Steed, provide the missing link in the governance chain.
