Considine hails benefits of integrated season
Women’s Rugby
Daire Walsh
Munster and Ireland star Eimear Considine has given a ringing endorsement to the IRFU’s integrated season plan for women’s rugby.
Spanning a period of 13 months, this process commenced in August with a training camp for the national team and is set to culminate in a series of World Cup qualifiers in September 2020.
Additionally, following the completion of next year’s Six Nations and All-Ireland League campaigns, Considine and her international team-mates will have nine training camps as they aim to seal a place at the 2021 finals in New Zealand.
“It’s time that we moved with the times. Having our scheduled training camps next summer means that the focus is on qualifying for that World Cup. It gives us time to prep for it as a squad, because you are chasing yourself when others are training,” Considine explained.
“Obviously we’re not going to beat France or England any time soon, because they do have the advantage of being with each other a lot of the time. Our AIL isn’t as high as their [English] Premiership.”
There has also been an extension to the Women’s Interprovincial Championship. Whereas there was previously just three games in a round-robin format, knockout rounds were introduced for 2019.
Considine’s Munster face Connacht in a semi-final encounter at Templeville Road later this afternoon (1.30pm).
“Usually at this stage (of the interpros) you’re only really getting going and then it’s the last game. It’s great to have those extra two games, it meant we got to have a lot of squad rotation. It meant girls played in positions they wouldn’t usually play, but at the end of the day we were already through to a semi-final anyway,” Considine said.
“The interpros are the best opportunity that we have to show off the best of what’s in women’s rugby in Ireland.”