Ciara Griffin: Future is bright for Ireland women’s rugby
Ciara Griffin is adamant the Ireland women’s rugby team have a bright future ahead of them after she exited the international stage in spectacular fashion against Japan at the RDS on Saturday.
Captaining her country for the 24th and final time, the retiring Kerry native grabbed a brace of second half tries to turn a 12-3 interval deficit into an eventual three-point victory. In what was also Adam Griggs’ swan song as head coach, a resilient Ireland overcame the 29th-minute dismissal of Hannah O’Connor to make it an ideal send-off on two fronts.
“It’s great to see, it’s a solid squad. You will take solace from it because our backs were to the wall a few times there and often times it might have broken, but we kept solid. We ground it out. We resourced it and just played to our strengths,” Griffin remarked after her final game as an international.
“I’ll take a lot from that with this group going forward and I’m really excited to watch them now in 2022. Resilience is something I love. It’s something I do a lot of research into and I think that group in there is the epitome of resilience. I’ll definitely take [comfort from] that going forward.”
Throughout her career in green, Griffin has always stressed the importance of the collective over the individual. This meant she was doing her best in the early hours of Saturday to underplay the magnitude of what was about to unfold, but she eventually started to appreciate the significance of the game.
“I woke up this morning and, to be honest, it was like any other match day. As the day went on, obviously I realised what it meant to me and what it was going to be. I relished the build-up, relished the moments and just took it all in. I’ve never taken in so much of all the little details on a match day. It was just a lovely build-up and a nice ending.”
The Japanese threatened to ruin Griffin’s farewell for large spells, with Mana Furuta and Seina Saito dotting down either side of O’Connor being red-carded for a dangerous challenge on Nijiho Nagata.
However, Griffin took matters into her own hands on the resumption as she charged down Kanako Kobayashi’s attempted clearance before grounding just shy of the dead-ball line.
She subsequently edged the hosts back in front with a powerful finish over the whitewash on 55 minutes and while the Japanese ramped up the pressure in the closing moments, Ireland held out for a second autumn international win in the space of eight days.
Although his tenure will ultimately be defined by the failure to qualify for next year’s World Cup, the departing Griggs believes the past couple of weeks has put this Ireland squad in a good position to move forward under his successor Greg McWilliams.
“Even in the last few weeks, some of the players that have gone through that World Cup qualifier experience have even shown already a maturity that they probably didn’t have before that experience,” Griggs said.
“There’s a lot of young girls there. I genuinely think with them coming through in the next two or three seasons, we’re going to see some really good foundations of what we’ve laid. I hope that equals success for Greg and his group.”
C Griffin 2 tries, E Breen pen, con.
S Saito, M Furuta try each, A Otsuka con.
L Delany; A Doyle, E Considine, S Naoupu, L Sheehan; E Breen, K Dane; L Feely, N Jones, L Djougang; A McDermott, S Monaghan; C Griffin, E McMahon, H O’Connor.
K O’Dwyer for Feely, C Moloney for Jones (both 46), S Touhey for Doyle, A Caplice for McMahon (both 65).
R Anoku; H Nagura, M Furuta, K Kobayashi, K Imakugi; A Otsuka, M Tsukui; S Kato, N Nagata, M Lavemai; K Tamai, O Yoshimura; S Saito, M Suzuki, A Nagai.
W Kitano for Yoshimura, M Abe for Tsukui (both h-t), S Minami for Lavemai (46), I Nagata for Nagai (50), M Yamamoto for Otsuka (55), Y Ito for Suzuki (59), A Kokaji for N Nagata (74).
C Munarini (Italy).