Cliodhna Moloney reached for a bottle of water under the table, swallowed a mouthful and waited for the inevitable question that would open the sluice gate.
It took a little while to materialise. Sitting beside her in a top table format at the High-Performance Centre was Ireland women’s coach Scott Bemand, who fielded a handful of questions largely pertaining to the recent interprovincial championship, the upcoming international against Australia at Kingspan Stadium on Saturday week and the WXV1 tournament in Vancouver later in the year.
Moloney had been in exile literally and figuratively. Playing for the Exeter Chiefs, she returned to the Ireland squad for the final three matches in last season’s Six Nations Championship, thereby ending a period of exclusion dating back to November 2021, when she was critical of the then IRFU director of women’s rugby Anthony Eddy, using the phrase “slurry spreading” on social media.
In December 2021 she was one of a large number of then current and former players who wrote a letter to Minister for Sport and Minister of State with responsibility for sport to say that they had lost “all trust and confidence in the IRFU and its leadership” of the game. The Irish team had failed to qualify for the 2022 Women’s World Cup.
This was the first time since returning to the national squad that she got to address the issues publicly. The 31-year-old was measured and typically articulate, content not to dredge up the past in an overt way.
She’s noted the positive changes on her return to the national squad. “Since Scott’s come in, the environment has changed a lot, and it’s definitely worlds apart from when I was last here, in a good way. I’m really enjoying it.
“It was a weird time, but we’re all very happy to leave that in the past. It’s evident, inside, and out, that things are very different here. I love to hear that Scott’s allowed to put his team together and bring resources in that he knows work. I haven’t worked much with Hugh [Hogan] or Alex [Codling] yet, but I’m looking forward to [that].
“Obviously, Gareth Steenson has come in too and I know him from Exeter Chiefs. He used to work across both programmes, men’s and women’s. It’s a really good move forward, in that there’s lots of people coming from the men’s game to the women’s game now.”
Bemand has given the players a voice and they’re heard, a fact that Moloney quickly appreciated. She explained: “We don’t want to talk about the past too much, but it is a world apart from many different programmes I’ve been involved in, and things are moving in the right direction. They’ve [the players] got faith in the systems that are in place around the programme now so that’s really important.”
Moloney was asked whether she feared she’d played her last game for Ireland before her recall earlier this year. The 31-year-old Galway native said that she lived in a rugby bubble of playing for Exeter and never really addressed any internal dialogue about whether she should or would retire.
When she was asked to return, she concentrated on the micro picture of rugby rather than the macro of what it all meant. She said: “Because there was so much going on, I wasn’t really myself maybe for the first week or two.
“So, it was probably a bit of reflection really over the summer to understand what had happened and how special it was. I don’t know is it my personality or not, but I didn’t really think about things too much then. I was like just get in, play rugby, see what happens. But yeah, on reflection [it was nice] when I got away over the summer and got to think about things. Glad now to be in from the start of a campaign. That’s kind of what you want.”
Is she unsentimental? Moloney smiled: “[It] depends on who you talk to, have a small group that I am sentimental with. But yeah, happy to move on to the rugby for now.”
She is confident that Ireland can close the gap at international level under the new regime. “I think the level of planning is clear. While we are off doing our individual pre-seasons bits or the girls were [playing] in the interpros, Scott and his new coaching staff have been working very hard.
“There has been all sorts of things flying into us through email and WhatsApp groups about the plan, and all the specific areas that we need to prepare for WXV1 [in Canada] and the whole calendar year going forward to the World Cup [in England next year].
“There is a sense of the work being done. You know that coming into camp if you apply yourself correctly, we will be as prepared as we can be going to play the best teams in the world in Canada. Then it is exciting.
“It’s not like, ‘oh what will we do about this or what will we do about that? We feel like the work is being done and we can move forward when we get into camp. It is really nice. That’s the biggest notice for me.”
