Alison Miller recalls a funny story about what happened in advance of Ireland’s historic win over New Zealand at the 2014 women’s Rugby World Cup in Paris.
The pivotal Pool B clash was one of six games that took place in the French Federation’s national training centre in Marcoussis on the same day and, in a sign of the times, the Irish changing room had only two toilets.
Kick-off was nearing. The Irish players were about to begin their warm-up and the Spanish team, having completed their game and post-match showers, made their changing room available. Miller ran inside to avail of their hospitality but slipped on her studs and fell heavily on the floor, prompting concerned Spanish screams that she’d badly injured herself.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the Irish left-winger assured them before getting to her feet and running into the toilet.
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“So, I got my first hit on the floor of the Spanish changing room before I ever took to the pitch,” says Miller, laughing loudly.
To put Ireland’s ensuing 17-14 win in 2014 into perspective, it was the Black Ferns’ first defeat in a World Cup for 23 years dating back to the 1991 semi-final loss to the USA. New Zealand had won four World Cups in succession and it remains their only group stage loss to this day. At the time the Ireland men’s team had never beaten the All Blacks in a century of trying.
After a strong Irish first quarter went unrewarded, New Zealand fullback Selica Winiata’s 27th-minute finish ominously augmented a penalty by Kelly Brazier. But a close-range finish by number eight Heather O’Brien left it 8-7 at the interval.
After another Brazier penalty, cometh the hour: Niamh Briggs splintered the chasing New Zealand line on the counter and passed for Miller to go around Emma Jensen and finish in the corner from almost halfway.
“I’d played with Briggsy in college and we knew each other for quite a long time,” recalls Miller. “Whenever she got the ball you had to get with her because you knew that she could make something happen.
“I had a lot of self-doubt as a player before games but luckily that all changed on the pitch and I believed I could beat anyone. To get space on the edge I knew that I could finish. To get over was magnificent.”
Briggs landed the touchline conversion and, after another Brazier three-pointer, she nailed a difficult 71st-minute penalty before Ireland closed out the game in the New Zealand 22.
“We were lucky to have the type of personalities we had at the time, strong women who didn’t take any BS,” says Miller. “Especially during that time when you had to fight for a lot, they were certainly not ‘yes women’.
Among them was Fiona Murphy, a brilliant captain in Miller’s view. And the performance of flanker Paula Fitzpatrick stood out that day. “One of the most brilliant players that I ever played with,” says Miller. There were also the darts of Gillian Burke, her understanding with lock Marie-Louise “Maz” O’Reilly, “Briggsy” and her kicking, and so much more.
With the USA and Kazakhstan completing the group, only the pool winner progressed to the semi-finals.
“You didn’t really have any other choice but to beat [New Zealand] or else you weren’t going to progress,” says Miller.
“It was a big upset but we knew that if we could be in the game at 60 minutes that we’d have a good chance. We’d worked with Marian Earls and she had us in great shape, and we had some generational players.”
Miller also recalls Peter Bracken’s pre-match rallying call to the players: “Let’s go f***ing mental”. After which all the players repeated the mantra.
Overall, though, Miller looks back with regret at a 40-7 semi-final loss to England and missing out on a medal after a “nip-and-tuck” third-place play-off against France.
Yet she’d prefer to have a World Cup semi-final than a third Six Nations title. Besides which, the reaction to that win is a reminder of its significance for women’s rugby in Ireland and it’s a source of pride that one of her good friends and current co-captain, Edel McMahon, was a 20-year-old among the mostly green-clad 2,000 or so supporters that day.
Miller would go on to score an Irish record of 24 tries in 47 Tests, as well as 22 tries in 35 World Series 7s games, overcoming both a broken fibula and a compound fracture of her ankle to return to the national side in the 2019 Six Nations before retiring that March.
Ireland actually hold a 2-1 head-to-head record over New Zealand, for after a 38-8 defeat in a November friendly at the UCD Bowl in 2016, they beat the Black Ferns in the WXV1 tournament last September in Vancouver.
After failing to qualify for the last World Cup, which New Zealand won, and finishing winless in the 2023 Six Nations, beating the Black Ferns would have seemed outrageous until the IRFU appointed Scott Bemand in July 2023 and began pumping greater resources and personnel into the team.
After a third-place finish in the 2024 Six Nations, the post-Olympics’ return of the Sevens players had contributed to an eye-catching six-tries-to-two 36-10 over Australia in Belfast a fortnight before the encounter with New Zealand in Vancouver.
Bemand made only two changes before Aoife Wafer, as against the Wallaroos, added to her burgeoning reputation with another couple of powerful finishes. Neve Jones also finished from close-range and it was evidence of the squad’s depth that Erin King sprang from the bench to score twice, with Dannah O’Brien’s conversion off the upright sealing a dramatic 29-27 win over the Black Ferns.
“We talked a lot about belief versus awe going into that game,” says King, remembering the collective buzz that morning.
Only Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald had faced the haka in a XVs game before.
“We played the haka continuously in the team room. We spoke about not getting spooked by that and I remember going out to face the haka I had a smile on my face because I was just so excited.
“We agreed that we would stand with our arms around each other and take a step forward when they had finished the haka to accept the challenge.”
She accepts she was lucky to be on the end of the team’s strong launches and good play. “They were probably the easiest tries ever.”
King also recalls their final scrum in the 80th minute on halfway.
“All of us were saying: ‘Come on, scrum for your life!’ And then Dannah kicked it out. That was one of the best moments I’ve had in a green jersey. Most of the XVs girls had had a few tough years and it was everything they deserved. I don’t think we could quite believe it but at the same time we had trained so well, there’s such talent in the squad and such a great coaching staff.”
It was also definitive proof of this team’s progress in a relatively short period of time, which King also attributes to the close-knit team culture.
King was cruelly sidelined by a serious knee injury last April against England, though at 21 you’d hope she’ll have two or three World Cups yet, and she hopes to be fully fit for the Six Nations.
She lives with Beibhinn Parsons, Aoibheann Reilly and Niamh O’Dowd, and while “a little bit jealous” she enjoyed being in Northampton last weekend for the Spanish game and hopes to be in Brighton this Sunday.
That win last September took place at 3am Irish time and was only available via streaming, whereas this Pool C finale is a World Cup match on terrestrial television. And with a 31,000-plus full house, it is further evidence of how far the women’s game generally, and the World Cup especially, has progressed.
The Black Ferns have since unearthed a couple of gems in outside back Braxton Sorensen-McGee and flanker Jorga Miller and, like King, Dorothy Wall is a long-term absentee, while Wafer is unlikely to feature only on the verge of a return from a knee injury. Furthermore, the mastermind of Ireland’s vastly improved defence, Hugh Hogan, has moved on and there has been evidence of a softness on the fringes and narrowness on the edges.
Still, both Miller and King remain positive. Miller admires how this Irish team keep achieving goals and fronts up against the leading sides.
“New Zealand were very good against Japan but there were frailties there. Their lineout didn’t impress. In a World Cup, with Ireland’s record, you just don’t know. I think this Irish team will have a right old go at them,” she says.
Similarly, King expects Ireland to be at full tilt, not least as they have already qualified for the quarter-finals. She says: “I think it will be a close match, very back and forth, and one of the games of the World Cup.”
