Wicklow People

‘I try to be the

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LUCY MULHALL is a globetrott­ing daughter of Crossbridg­e, Tinahely, member of Rathdrum RFC, and captain of the Irish Women’s Sevens team.

Having visited Dubai and Sydney since November, she has upcoming trips to Japan, Canada and Paris before the Rugby World Cup Sevens take place in San Francisco in July. It was similar last year, she’ll have more places to go next year, and the Olympic Games in Tokyo are in her sights.

While training four days a week as a profession­al, she is also an Ad Astra scholarshi­p student in UCD, midway through a science degree.

Women don’t usually get the same standard of preparatio­n as men in profession­al sport, last year the Internatio­nal women’s soccer team staged a press conference to air their grievances against the FAI, however for Mulhall and her teammates she leads across the white line there is no difference between the men and women’s squads.

“If anything, because we are on the circuit, we’re very well looked after. We train with the men a lot, we share the same house, we’re actually more full time than them at the moment. Anytime we go away to tournament­s we’re staying in similar hotels of a similar quality, if not better than the men. Then we share the same food and the same pitch at tournament­s.

“In the sport of Sevens, Australia have the same payments as the men.

“It’s a newer sport, especially in the last couple of years since it became an Olympic sport, I think they’ve done really well bringing up the men’s and the women’s to the same level. We’re very lucky with the program that we have at the moment, we’re always treated on a par with the men.”

Hailing from a sporting family, Mulhall was never discourage­d from playing sport. An All-Ireland champion at 18 with the Wicklow Ladies Football Junior team and part of the prolific Tinahely team that has dominated ladies football in the county, she’s never had a negative word said to her about playing GAA or a physical sport like Sevens.

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