Eimear Ryan: The underlying anxiety in women’s sports is that any progress can be rolled back

The effectiveness of any IRFU review into Ireland's failure to qualify for the Rugby World Cup is also being questioned, given that the last one clearly didn’t work

PAIN GAME: A dejected Eimear Considine (15) after Ireland’s defeat to Scotland in last Saturday’s World Cup qualifier in Parma. Picture: INPHO/Matteo Ciambelli

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been rehabbing my right ankle which I broke in mid-July. It’s been going well so far — I’m back walking, driving, cycling, and swimming. (Not running yet. Definitely not skateboarding.) The swelling has gone down. The little micro-movements that my physio assigned to me are getting done a few times a day in front of Netflix. My limp is less and less pronounced. I’m back attending training, if not participating any further than a few tentative pucks.

But even as progress is being made, I still have a perfectly good left ankle to which I can always unfavourably compare the right. No matter how far it’s come since the cast came off in late August, I still mentally berate the right ankle for not being more like the left. ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister?’ and so forth.

And so it is, frequently, with women’s team sports. No matter what progress we’ve made — and it’s been significant, in this last decade in particular — men’s sport is right there for comparison. As much as conditions, facilities, funding, media coverage and attendances have improved, there’s a perfectly good example, so near yet so far away, of how things could be even better again.

So when there’s a disastrous moment in women’s sport — like the failure, last week, to qualify for the Rugby World Cup next year — it’s difficult to unpick whether it was a systemic failure or a sporting one. The days of cold showers, paying for gear, and a sense that no one is watching are still very much alive in the memories of veteran players. There is an underlying anxiety in women’s sports that any progress can be rolled back; that the bad old days could potentially be just around the corner again.

Some commentators on Twitter didn’t understand why there was such an uproar in the wake of the defeat to Scotland, or why there were calls for the IRFU to be held to account. The girls just weren’t good enough on the day, was the general gist, suggesting that it was convenient or even lazy to blame the higher-ups.

And it’s true that there were mistakes made on the pitch. The management of set-pieces and the levels of discipline are the two major weaknesses that have been identified in the days following the defeat. But even allowing for these errors, there’s a widespread feeling in Irish rugby that the squad — for all their talent and hard work — were not set up for success by the IRFU.

That’s a real shame, and muddies the waters of reporting. There’s almost a luxury in being able to confine your analysis to the actions of the players on the pitch. We might bemoan Europe’s resounding defeat in the Ryder Cup, but at least we don’t have to worry that the golfers didn’t receive adequate support or levels of professionalism. With women’s sport, we can’t always make this assumption.

Sexism — not active, malignant sexism, but a sort of passive, we-just-didn’t-think-of-it sexism — is still a systemic factor that affects women’s sports. In a lot of instances, it’s small things — such as county boards fixing senior club hurling matches for the same day as the inter-county camogie team is involved in championship. These cases of being overlooked or just not considered do stack up and have an impact on players.

At the women’s rugby interprovincials earlier this month, a video depicting the Connacht team’s changing area at Energia Park — a tent pitched in a derelict dumping ground — went viral. It reminded me of the videos that came out of the NCAA college’s basketball tournament in the US in March, when the women’s gym facilities — a pile of yoga mats and one stand of dumbbells — were contrasted with the huge, comprehensive gym provided to the male players. With iPhones and social media, women athletes are now able to capture and broadcast the frustrations and barriers they encounter. But having to hold organisations to account is exhausting, too, and takes up energy that should be going into sport.

It was heartening, then, to see the outpouring on Twitter regarding the rugby team’s failure to qualify. It felt like a dam had burst — that former players, commentators and coaches had been holding back their opinions for a long time in the hopes that their worst fears would not be borne out. But when a national team has been winning the Six Nations and finishing fourth in the world within the last 10 years, a failure to uphold those standards speaks to a deeper issue than the match just not working out on the day.

That’s why there has been a public, informal post-mortem ahead of the inevitable review by the IRFU. “It would break your heart looking at the Irish women’s team after that defeat!” tweeted Seán O’Brien. “The effort and sacrifice they make is incredible and I think it’s very fair to say not enough is done for them!! The powers that be need to do more IMO!”

Former coach Philip Doyle also chimed in, saying that the “players will hold up their hands but will the management?? That includes you Mr Eddy”, referring to Anthony Eddy, the IRFU’s head of women’s rugby.

Speaking to the media, legends of the game Fiona Coghlan and Paula Fitzpatrick both identified a lack of investment in grassroots rugby, as well as an over-emphasis on rugby 7s to the detriment of 15s, as central to the failure to qualify. (It’s worth noting that Eddy is also the IRFU’s director of rugby 7s.)

This was backed up by a Twitter thread from Bantry Bay RFC, who highlighted the difficulties of fielding a 15s team at club level.

The effectiveness of any IRFU review is also being questioned, given that the last one — made in the wake of Ireland’s disappointing performance at the 2017 World Cup, when warning signs first started to appear — clearly didn’t work. Not only was the IRFU intent on qualifying for the next World Cup in New Zealand, but it set a target of finishing in the top six. That the team fell so short will no doubt haunt the players; we can only hope that it also spooks the IRFU into action.