Still a long way to go for women in sport

A LOT done, a hell of a lot more to do. That was the message of some of Ireland’s top female athletes who gathered in Croke Park yesterday for the Women in Sport conference.

Ladies from every code were represented at the day-long event, but rugby is perhaps the best example of how the giant strides made in one sport in the past ten years still pale into comparison with how far they could still conceivably travel.

Twelve years ago there wasn't even an Irish women's rugby association and it was only 24 months later that the national team played their first ever game. Progress has been swift since all the same, the pinnacle so far being last year's game against England in Twickenham played as a curtain-raiser to a men's Six Nations encounter.