‘I support Cliodhna 100%. We all do. This whole team have her back’
Ireland women’s rugby captain Ciara Griffin admits she and her international colleagues were “disappointed” by remarks made by the IRFU’s Director of Women’s Rugby Anthony Eddy earlier this week.
Speaking in a media briefing on Monday, Eddy – who is also the union’s Sevens Director – made a series of comments that have caused anger both inside and outside of the Irish camp.
As well as defending the level of support afforded to the 15-a-side game (in response to a question about the sevens code being the IRFU’s main priority for women’s rugby), he appeared to put a large degree of responsibility on the players’ shoulders for the unsuccessful World Cup qualification campaign in September.
In her capacity as international skipper, Griffin had a subsequent conversation with Eddy in the wake of his much-discussed interview. While there is general unhappiness within the ranks over his comments, she stressed the independent review into Ireland’s failed World Cup bid (conducted by former Welsh international Amanda Bennett) will offer the whole squad an opportunity to get their points across.
“I was [disappointed in Eddy’s comments]. We all were. People have their comments, that’s fine. That’s what the review is for. We can put in our feedback into that and we’re just going to trust the review process.
“Anthony, he addressed me in terms of that he apologised in case people took offence to his comments, but his comments were made. We now need to focus on the game at hand and then we’ll look at the review process after that. We will give our opinions there.”
Griffin also threw her full support behind team-mate Cliodhna Moloney, following her criticism of what Eddy had to say.
In a social media post, Moloney compared Eddy’s remarks to “slurry spreading”. This stance has already been publicly backed by a handful of players within the current squad, including her front-row partner Lindsay Peat.
“I support Cliodhna 100%. We all do. This whole team have her back. She’s not alone. I think it’s really important that we get that point across. That this group is very close knit. It’s very tight and we have Cliodhna’s back,” Griffin explained ahead of Ireland’s autumn test against the USA in the RDS tomorrow night.
“We want to focus on this game as well, but we have Cliodhna’s back. We support her. She’s very passionate about this game, we all are. We all just want our best and put our best foot forward. Cliodhna is not alone here, we all have her back.” Despite Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe and Nichola Fryday suggesting yesterday that Moloney’s response to Eddy wasn’t necessarily reflective of the entire squad’s opinion on the matter, Griffin insists there is no split within the Irish camp. However, when asked if she had full faith in Eddy as Director of Women’s Rugby, the Kerry native opted against a direct reply.
“We’ve to trust the process of this review. We put all our thoughts and opinions in this review and that’s where we’ll go. That’s what the review is for. That’s where we can put our opinions and our thoughts, and that’s where we will share them,” she said in response to a question on Eddy’s current role within women’s rugby.
“It definitely hasn’t caused a split in camp. To be honest we all back each other. We all have each other’s backs, no one is alone in this group. I think it’s really important that point gets across, that we have each other’s backs at all times.”