IRELAND WOMEN"S RUGBY TEAM: Role models strutting the world stage

There are any numbers of stories and statistics by which you could measure the progress made by an Irish women’s rugby side which, in Paris this evening, will fight for the right to feature in their first World Cup final.

Old tales of packed lunches and lodgings on gym floors have been told and retold, most of them in considerable detail around the period 18 months or so ago when Philip Doyle’s side were in the process of claiming a first Grand Slam title.

A handful of the same emerged yesterday lunchtime as players and coaches mingled in Marcoussis with a still small but burgeoning Irish media that, like the public at large, is warming to this group of high achievers.

There was Cooke RFC and Ulster’s Grace Davitt who will line out against England at inside-centre this evening and who happened to mention how she had to pay €80 for the privilege of owning her first Irish cap back in the day.

And there was Doyle himself who held court about how he and Tony Smeeth were parachuted into the role of overseers just six weeks before Ireland contested the first World Cup to be sanctioned by the IRB back in 1998.

Ireland finished 13th that year, one place behind a Kazakhstan side that bettered them 12-6 in the pool stages. Ireland beat the Kazakhs 40-5 last week, despite the imposition of ten changes from their previous outing.

It is that previous outing, the 17-14 defeat of world champions New Zealand, that has made their own country and the rest of the rugby world sit up and take notice. Which isn’t to say that Ireland can claim to be favourites.

France, too, have made their compatriots sit up and take notice — in their case by running over Wales, South Africa and Australia. The hosts face Canada in the second semi-final at Stade Jean Bouin.

Quite the bit of work to do yet, then.

England’s coach Gary Street has been a part of the women’s management team in one capacity or another since 2006 and is on record as saying that this crop are the best in all that time.

Beaten finalists in 2006 and 2010, their pedigree is clear.

Yet, Doyle is equally bullish about his troops. Four years ago, he felt it necessary to play his best side three pool games in a row. This time he felt secure enough to make ten changes for the Kazakhstan outing. If their efforts on the field have marked them out as a cut above most then their remarks off it offer clues as to why.

The traditional Irish hat tip towards opponents and the tendency to engage in self-deprecation are both marked absent. Davitt spoke yesterday about the quality of skill sets the players have as individuals and a collective. Doyle detailed how the abilities of his charges has allowed him to release his hand – if ever so slightly – from the tiller.

It isn’t that long ago, by their own admission, that Ireland’s players discovered answers to problems in post-match DVD sessions. Now they think for themselves on the hoof and it has empowered them no end.

That this Irish team has evolved to a special place is most evident in their attitude to adversity, as was witnessed last Tuesday week when New Zealand ran up an 8-0 lead despite an opening spell in which the underdogs had dominated.

“If something needs fixing we are able to fix it on the field, which we probably wouldn’t have been able to do in the past,” said full-back and place-kicker Niamh Briggs. “That’s why we’re punching above our weight and we saw that in the New Zealand match. We had all that position but couldn’t get any points on the board and then they came down and got a try. There was no chaos. Everyone was so calm. We just said ‘okay, we are going to go up the field, force mistakes’ and then we got a try.”

Which, of course, they did.

‘Better us and we will adapt and improve.’ It is a mindset that has served them well and all the more apposite given their last meeting with England resulted in a 17-10 loss in Twickenham in this year’s Six Nations.

Doyle looked back on that defeat yesterday and spoke about “unfinished business”. He explained how Ireland would ask questions of England by going for the throat rather than soak up the pressure, as they did earlier this year.

“Leaving Ireland, people might have laughed when we went over (to France) saying we were going over to win the World Cup,” said Davitt, “but here we are in the semi-final. We’re one match away from the final.”

After all, they’ve come this far.

Article source: http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/11243296.CHRIS_KIRWAN__Apathy_a_danger_in_Welsh_rugby_rumpus/

IRELAND WOMEN"S RUGBY TEAM: Role models strutting the world stage