After thoughts of retirement, Considine in disbelief at Ireland call
Having wrestled with the idea of bringing her career as a high-performance rugby player to an end just a few short weeks ago, Eimear Considine has admitted it comes as a ‘big shock’ to find herself back in the starting line-up for the Ireland women’s rugby team.
Due to a combination of picking up a medial collateral ligament injury in the same game and the subsequent arrival of her son Caolán, Considine was away from rugby for an extended period following her most recent appearance in green – a Six Nations Championship clash with England on April 24, 2022.
She returned to the field of play roughly 12 weeks after giving birth to Caolán in January 2023 but was unfortunately back on the treatment table after sustaining an anterior cruciate ligament injury in Munster’s defeat to Leinster in a Women’s Interprovincial Championship final on September 2 of that year.
Following an elongated recovery period – and a hamstring-related set-back just as the competition was about to get underway – Considine finally returned off the bench in Munster’s third-round win over Connacht in this year’s Interpros and also made a cameo appearance in their second successive decider loss to Leinster at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast a fortnight ago.
The thought had crossed her mind that this might be her final game at provincial or international level, but an injury to Connacht’s Meabh Deely led to her being drafted back into the Irish set-up.
Such is the impression she made upon her return to the international fold, that Ireland head coach Scott Bemand has named Considine at full-back in his team to face Australia at Kingspan later on today (kick-off 2.30pm).
“It’s a big shock, it really is. I had accepted that my game against Leinster was going to be my last game with Munster and that could be my last game with high performance. I was happy to just walk off a pitch on my own terms.
“In my own eyes, I ended my Irish career with being stretchered off against England,” Considine explained.
“My Munster career would have ended last year getting stretchered off against Leinster, so I kind of wanted to finish on my own terms. I had it in my head that two weekends ago was my last rugby match. Genuinely, when I say I don’t believe it that I’m in here, I don’t believe it that I’m in here.
“Interpros is another year, it’s another year later. Club is fine to play, but I was the oldest by far on that Munster squad and I looked around the changing room at some stage and they were just doing TikToks.
“They were talking about things that I just didn’t know about and I was just like, ‘I think my time here is done!’
“I suppose the year previous I had a dream to come back to play for Ireland. Then the knee happened and then I just thought it was too far gone. I thought two years out of the game was just too far, but here I am.”