Ronan O'Gara: Rachael Blackmore's stunning successes are seismic for girls in sport
Rachael Blackmore with Elsie Herbeck at Thurles last Saturday, 24 hours after her stunning victory in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a win that has inspired young girls to dare to dream.
I did a Q&A type thing with an Irish Examiner writer this week, more of which you may read anon. Usually, I wouldn’t be a fan of these things, but it proved to be an engaging, enlightening conversation with Nicole Glennon that had next to nothing to do with rugby.
First question out of the gate was when’s the last time I cried?
Ordinarily, I would have had to ponder that one for a while but the answer was readily to hand. Watching the Cheltenham Gold Cup last week, I had a bit of a wobble when Rachael Blackmore went past the finishing post on A Plus Tard for her golden moment.
It was precisely that — a moment, and a very powerful one at that. Shortly afterwards, I was bringing my 13-year-old lady to gymnastics and as we drove along, I found myself contemplating how significant Rachael’s seismic successes are for girls in sport.
This has all been happening very gradually but the outsized achievement of Irish women in sport has crashed all over us in the past year or two. Sport, finally, seems to be changing for the better.
For hundreds of years, this sort of stuff seldom happened and if it did, it was always on the outer margins of our consciousness. Girls were doing great things, but invariably for themselves and those closest to them. The knock-on from their achievement were kept near and narrow, not far and wide. It’s not that there isn’t satisfaction in the achievement, but recognition is important to every human being. Rachael Blackmore and her achievements are markedly different. Not only is she competing at the same level but bettering her male counterparts in one of the most physically and mentally demanding pursuits in sport.
When I was growing up in Bishopstown, role models were Roy Keane and JBM, Mick Bradley and Ralph Keyes. Once in a while, Sonia O’Sullivan turned us into neighbourhood Olympians. Sonia apart, who did the girls have to look up to?
Some may still reckon that because horse racing isn’t a field sport, it’s more difficult to empathise with, but Rachael’s level is actually more remarkable because horse racing is a brutal sport in terms of ferocity and live dangers. There’s a good reason an ambulance drives around after every race. Rachael isn’t a top female jockey, she is a top jockey. She is living in and eclipsing the best of company.
The women’s Six Nations kicks off this weekend and around Europe, girls are looking for role models to inspire. Advantageous scheduling affords the two opening series of games a free run at the broader rugby calendar to reach out to a massive and willing captive audience across Europe waiting for heroines.
Kids want to enjoy their sport, but they also want to be associated with something that’s cool and on point. They want to get better and attain the skillset of the game’s best practitioners. Many will be looking at this year’s women’s Six Nations with an eye on quality and technical proficiency. I watch the Ladies Football on TG4 and at the upper end, the standards and the skillsets have increased significantly to the point where I am watching a game of football now, not a game of ladies’ football. That’s important.
The beauty of rugby is that you can have anyone from 50 kgs to 150 kgs playing the game. It’s a sport for everyone with one important difference from the men’s code - the power game, that facility to run hard and straight at a brick wall, is not necessarily a central tenet of the women’s game plan. There is an opportunity for a more nuanced tactical map to be drawn. Greater subtlety in other words.
Another important factor. Molly is on TikTok. She is a gymnast first, loves to ride horses too, and spends too much of her other free time on TikTok. It’s their generation’s conversation piece and for the Six Nations, it’s a very shrewd commercial relationship in terms of building audience and footfall. Molly will get her exposure to the women’s Six Nations via TikTok. There is no impediment to her getting hooked on rugby if she discovers the right inspiration.
Irish rugby has had its difficult phase with damaging oversights in terms of player preparation and facilities but better to pick the scab and clean the wound than let it fester. The noises coming out about new head coach Greg McWilliams seems positive, both in terms of his rugby nous and his inter-personal skills.
He obviously has experience of Ireland under previous management, but his glass-half-full approach and can-do mentality – a recurring trait of the American sporting system - is refreshing. Anything I have read from and about him in recent weeks has offered a sense of moving things forward with the women’s game in this country, and not using well-publicised issues as a crutch. ‘We have our starting point, this is what I have in front of me, let’s enjoy this, let’s get the girls playing to their potential’.
Whether that will be good enough to beat England or France in this Six Nations campaign is doubtful, but it should be good enough to see Ireland kick off with a win at home to Wales this weekend. Ireland then travel to France in Week 2, a totally different proposition and one that will give McWilliams a more accurate barometer of where the bar is set. Rachael and others like her have done wondrous things for the profile of women in sport. Rugby is now crying out for a Nic Cronin, Eve Higgins, Eimear Considine, Beibhin Parsons - or the girl who starts ahead of her this weekend, Lucy Mulhall - to hog the attention of impressionable young ladies for all the right reasons.
Momentum is half the battle, irrespective of the gender or the sport.
Week 3, when Ireland entertain Italy, is the same weekend as the men’s European Champions Cup knockout phase. There is the possibility that they complement each other, that rugby supporters generally feed the Women’s Six Nations into their viewing cycle. With a progressive commercial partner, top-quality media production and, most importantly, good rugby on the pitch, there’s an open goal there to put the women’s game on a pedestal.
It's already hugely popular in France, La Rochelle, for instance, has three women’s adult teams (and no, I am not going to bite on the suggestion that we’d have been better off playing them in Toulon last Saturday…) Stade Rochelais have our own game against Racing 92 on Saturday which will certainly compromise my chance to view the Ireland-Wales game but it’s something we are going to watch back as a family after.
Having tanked last week, La Rochelle (men) have put ourselves into a bit of a spot. The upside is that French rugby has now turned its gaze back from the Six Nations to the club game, so Top 14 sides have their French Grand Slam winners back into the set-up.
A couple of men’s Six Nations reflections before we put it to bed: Two nations rose above the general mediocrity, though shone in different ways. France were occasionally spectacular but mostly steady in winning five-from-five, which is quite scary. Ireland’s management will be quite pleased with their tournament’s work. The most tries (24), the least conceded (four), and quite a lot of players operating near the top of their form.
France were stressed in Cardiff, but then Wales, incredibly, lost at home to Italy. That was the most unexpected development of the tournament and it will keep Italy breathing for another few years. The drastic conclusion for Welsh rugby is accentuated when you think of what Italy’s chances would be like away to any of the other four nations.
How quickly things can fall apart from almost beating France to losing at home to Italy. There are lessons there beyond the Six Nations – too much of an emphasis on individual players and not on the team. Everything I read last week about the Wales-Italy game was about Dan Biggar at 100 caps and Alun Wyn Jones at 150 caps. Wales lost their sense of purpose and instead focused on individuals who didn't produce on their big day.
It was a serious error.
