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.