IRFU need only look at soccer stars to see what can be achieved
BEHIND the headlines, the work goes on to keep women’s sport buoyant. On Tuesday last, the IRFU High Performance Centre staged a headline act. Johnny Sexton was making his first media appearance of the season, and he was insightful when assessing the threat of South Africa in yesterday’s Test, as well as looking ahead to the coming 12 months as he seeks to end his long, successful career on a World Cup high.
When Sexton was done talking, and we were exiting the facility, which is new and located on the National Sports Campus in west Dublin, the IRFU in-house media staff were setting up interviews with two of the players from the women’s squad.
November 1 was the official start of their new high-performance programme, a development whose significance includes professional contracts for 29 players.
They are the first generation of Irish women to have their commitment to the national rugby team recognised with professional deals.
Some surprise has been expressed that, given there was a roomful of journalists present to listen to Sexton, they weren’t then invited to speak to some of the women involved in breaking this new ground.
If that constituted a missed opportunity, there are more substantive matters to which the IRFU must attend.
One is maximising the benefits of the new system for the players, and justifying the accompanying investment.
Dorothy Wall and Maeve Óg O’Leary were the two players interviewed by the IRFU on day one of the game’s new world.
The advantages of committing their careers to the sport are familiar from interviews with their peers in France, England, New Zealand and other countries who have introduced professional deals: more time for recovery, better physical preparation generally as the requirement to rush from work or studies to training is removed, and more time to attend to medical and nutritional demands.
Time, in a word, is the prize secured by full-time contracts.
But in time, results will matter, too. Better treatment for the players and a firm commitment to the game from the IRFU are not the union doing the girls a good turn; fairness and respect demanded as much.
Without success on the field, though, the progress earned over the last year will not be wrung for all it is worth. And that is surely the most valuable lesson to be found in the story of the women’s soccer team over the past half-decade.
They had to make a more dramatic stand against the shocking treatment they received from the FAI, and the results of their courage were to be found in better resources, but also a consequent improvement on the pitch.
The appointment of Vera Pauw was critical, and there is an enduring conviction around the women’s rugby game that the appointment of Greg McWilliams was a dramatic improvement on what went before. If he can synch as well with his players as Pauw has done, and if his methods are absorbed, then there is a good news story waiting to be told.
The situations are not directly comparable, of course, with Pauw being able to call upon a level of talent that is not available to her rugby peer. And the announcement on Thursday of a Nations League for the women’s game was another example of the extent of soccer’s popularity.
Yet the rapturous audience for the stories of the heroics of Amber Barrett, Katie McCabe, Denise O’Sullivan, Pauw and the rest, shows that there are audiences, previously cold on a sport, willing to be won over.
Fans in this country will never be slow in taking off after a bandwagon, and if McWilliams and his players can set the wheels trundling, they will find a crowd gathering around them.
Expectations should be tethered to reality; Ireland at their best prepared will still find the challenges of France and England in the Six Nations daunting.
Mismatches will continue, rooted in the vast playing picks enjoyed by those two heavyweights, as well as their longer-established full-time projects.
Expecting progress is not unreasonable, though, because one supposes the players themselves will be the first to demand it.
For all of the many benefits of sport at its elite end, winning is the point.
Issues with the introduction of Ireland’s contracting system have been laid bare in the past week, but it is an unarguable improvement on what pertained in the past.
Refinements should continue, and the long-term results will only strengthen women’s rugby in Ireland.
Nothing nourishes a sport like success, though. Winning inspires, and this pioneering group of players will know it is what matters most.