RUGBY
WOMEN’S RUGBY WORLD CUP 2017 PREVIEW
By Daire Walsh
THE wait is almost over for the Ireland women’s rugby team, as they prepare to head into battle in the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup on their home turf.
Dublin’s UCD will play host to the pool stages of the tournament over the course of the next nine days, before Queen’s University and Kingspan Stadium in Belfast take over for the knockout rounds at the end of August.
Regardless of where Ireland finish in the group, they will play at least one fixture in Ulster (there will be ranking games in addition to the eagerly-anticipated semi-finals), but their immediate focus will be on their meetings with Australia, Japan and France in Pool C.
Tom Tierney’s side will kick off their campaign against the Australians tomorrow evening (7pm), and they will be hoping to claim their first-ever victory over the southern hemisphere outfit at 15s level. They lost out to Australia in the 1998 and 2006 World Cups, but any showdowns between the two sides have been restricted to the sevens grade in recent years.
A number of the Wallaroos squad have played sevens rugby for their country, and have come face-to-face with Ireland in recent tournaments.
Ireland winger Hannah Tyrrell has been a prominent member of the Ireland Sevens programme in recent seasons, and while she sees Australia as tough opponents in the opening game, she believes they need to focus primarily on their own systems of play.
“There’s a couple of them that are crossing over from 7s into 15s. The Australia game will be a tough one for us, but we’re just really focusing on ourselves as a team at the minute, and getting our systems and defensive systems on track, and working on little things like that. Hopefully things go the way we need it to on the day, and we start the tournament off well,” Tyrrell remarked recently.
Since making her debut during the 2015 Six Nations, Tyrrell (a former Dublin ladies footballer) has become a vital member of the Irish back-three, and with skipper and first-choice full-back Niamh Briggs ruled out of the tournament through injury, her role in the team will become even more significant.
She has been joined in the 28-strong selection by six of her Old Belvedere club-mates – including Kilcullen’s Jenny Murphy, who played in the historic triumph against New Zealand three years ago.
Alison Miller also joined up with the south Dublin club at the beginning of last season, and she admitted that it was an advantage to have so many of her international compatriots alongside her in the All-Ireland League.
“Yeah, I’m playing with Old Belvedere. The first year with Old Belvedere. To actually play with some of the girls that you play with on the Irish team, and to get to play with them, get used to each other, actually is brilliant,” Miller explains.
“To play a higher standard of rugby. It’s great to play with the likes of Nora Stapleton, Maz Reilly, Ailis Egan, Jenny Murphy, Sophie Spence. To play with those people, and to train with those people, is hugely beneficial.”
The outcome of the Australian game could make or break Ireland’s World Cup dream, but regardless of the result, they will need to re-group for an encounter with Japan just four days later. Their most recent official meeting with the Oriental outfit was a 55-0 win at Donnybrook in 2004, although the Irish did recently register a brace of hard-earned successes over Japan in trial games at UCD.
Following this match, Ireland will complete their pool with a mouthwatering contest against France on Thursday week (August 17). Ireland have recorded just three wins from 25 outings with the French, but did come out on top of their clash in this year’s Six Nations.
They also met in the 2014 World Cup, when Ireland were on the receiving end of an 18-25 reversal in a third/fourth place play-off in the final week of the tournament.
Because she was on sevens duty, Tyrrell didn’t feature in this year’s 15-10 success over France at Donnybrook Stadium, but is acutely aware that their opponents will be seeking revenge for that defeat in February.
“We’re trying not to look too far ahead in the pool games, and trying to focus on the first game, and then deal with the rest as they come. We know France are going to be a tough test. Yes, we beat them in the Six Nations this year, but we know they’re going to come back even stronger, and I think it’s going to be a fantastic game with a huge physicality involved. Hopefully we come out on the right side of it on the day,” Tyrrell added.