IRFU must embrace rugby 7’s concept

Their faces caked in mud, three girls passed in front of us, on their way back from Pitch Number 5.

Their faces caked in make-up, three girls of a very different kind looked at the first three: “If I’m ever tempted to play a game of rugby, please, please, stop me”, one quipped to the others, and as they had been doing for much of the previous hour or so, all broke out in beer-fuelled riotous laughter.

It takes all kinds, and all kinds turned up for the Bank Holiday Kinsale Rugby 7’s festival. The mud-caked girls had turned up to first play rugby and then (perhaps) play the field, the others, well, if they were going to get down and dirty, it wasn’t going to be in any one of the several muddy pitches, at least not in daylight and not with oval balls.