GAA and basketball providing Delany with tools to thrill for Ireland
From shooting hoops and kicking points, Delany is excelling in rugby after a ‘fantastic journey’
LAUREN DELANY is firmly established as part of an exciting back three who will be key if Ireland are to pull off a massive upset against the semi-professional French this weekend. However, when she was growing up, her ambition was to represent her country in a different sport.
During her time at Coláiste Íosagáin in Stillorgan, Dublin, her talent for basketball was discovered and nurtured by Marie O’Toole.
The secondary school has a raft of All-Ireland titles and Delany looked like joining a list of international players they produced.
She played underage for her country and joined Meteors in the Superleague. But just as Delany was about to make the jump from under-21 to the senior national team, Basketball Ireland ran into financial trouble and all international programmes were stopped.
‘When all the funding for international teams were stopped, that avenue was cut off for me,’ Delany explained yesterday. ‘I was going over to England to do my master’s and basketball became a lesser priority for me. But my career could have went down a different path.’
Delany is one of three former basketball players who were prominent for Ireland as they crushed Wales last weekend. The sport is one of a number that Lindsay Peat has excelled at while the soft hands shown by Aoife McDermott in the build-up to Dorothy Wall’s try came from her time on the basketball court.
The trio still talk about basketball during their time in camp and if that sport’s loss has been Irish rugby’s gain, it is only by chance that Delany has sprung to prominence in international rugby. She only took up the sport six years ago, at the age of 25, when she moved to Milton Keynes to take up a sports nutritionist job with British Badminton. There was no local basketball club, so Delany and a work colleague popped down to nearby Bletchley Ladies to try their luck with the oval ball.
A decade and a half on the basketball court meant that ball-skill was second nature to her, even if the tackling took some time to work out. ‘I just fell into rugby by chance, that was my first time ever trying the game,’ says Delany, who now plays with Sale Sharks in the Allianz Premiership, where she explains that the women’s team avail of the club’s state-of-the-art facilities in Carrington. Having learnt the basics of the sport in Milton Keynes, Delany then moved to Manchester after she got a job with British Cycling. In England’s north-west, she also tried Gaelic football for the first time, just as a way of making new friends in a new place, as well as a local basketball team. ‘When the rugby stepped up in seriousness, I had to stop playing basketball and Gaelic football and focus all my time and attention on rugby,’ Delany recalled. Even though she had only been playing the game for a couple of years, in the summer of 2018, she was invited to an IQ (Irish qualified) screening test in St Mary’s University, London. It was there she came to the attention of Adam Griggs, who liked what he saw.
The IQ system is an effort by the IRFU to trawl the English game for Irish-qualified players. And while Delany grew up in Dublin, it offered her an avenue by virtue of living in Manchester. ‘That talent IQ system is such an important avenue for Irish rugby,’ explains the 31-year-old, who now works as a nutritionist for Leeds Rhinos in the Super League. ‘I wouldn’t be where I am today without that IQ system. I owe my international career to it.
‘It brings an access to thousands of young girls and rugby players who could potentially qualify for the Irish system. There are a lot of players over here [in England] playing to such a high standard in the league, who would be an addition to the Irish system.’
An impressed Griggs called Delany into the Irish squad for the autumn internationals later that year and she ended up making her debut alongside a certain
Beibhinn Parsons in a test match against the USA. ‘It was a few years ago now and there is a few years in the age difference between us,’ Delany said with a chuckle. ‘It’s been great to watch Beibhinn grow over the years and she has definitely been a bit of an inspiration to me.’ Finding a way to quell the electrifying Parsons may be top of the French game-plan ahead of the tussle in Donnybrook, but that may open up more opportunities for the likes of Delany and Eimear Considine. ‘It is a really exciting time to be in our back three and an exciting time to be part of the side,’ Delany said. ‘I think we laid really good foundations last week with our victory. We have a couple of areas to improve from the Welsh game but we are optimistic that we can put together an even better performance against France and show that we can compete against one of the best sides in the world.’ Life took Lauren Delany in a different direction to her teenage hoop dreams. But she’s grateful for her chance with her new sport. ‘I still miss the basketball, but the opportunity came up with rugby and it has taken me on this fantastic journey,’ she proclaims. A journey that’s not over yet.