Pushing for world recognition
Rugby in Ireland has never enjoyed such a high profile through the success of Munster in the Heineken Cup and Ireland’s Triple Crowns (2004, 2006), and the Irish WRU hope this has a positive knock-on effect for young girls hoping to take up the sport.
Irish Women’s rugby is only 14 years old, but the absence of a proper schools or club structure to facilitate the important 12-18 age grade categories — ages where skills should be properly honed — is one of the reasons Ireland struggle to overcome the top three to four nations in the world.
The existence of such a structure in England and New Zealand has seen their women’s game flourish at senior level over the last 15 years and that’s why they are joint favourites to lift this year’s World Cup.
Now, a flourishing three-division all-Ireland league club structure allied to well organised inter-provincial series feeds into the national team structure. They quietly go about their business, busily and efficiently without screaming for publicity, but welcome any coverage. They would hope some day to see their sport accelerate at a speed of knots similar to the remarkable growth ladies football has enjoyed over the last five years.
Sometimes they go out on a limb for exposure — quite literally. When the Leinster ladies brought out calendar last Christmas with a handful of their players in a state of undress, it created quite a stir. It wasn’t tacky or cheap, it raised much needed money for Leinster and showed the sport had a glamorous side to it as well One newspaper even when as far as to say that “the calendar... certainly proves that not all rugby-playing women are hearty bruisers”. And that they certainly aren’t.
Like many players in the current Irish rugby squad, both Fiona Coghlan and Jean Lonergan arrived late to the game but it didn’t take them long to move up the ladder from university and club levels to the provincial and national teams. Their paths are remarkably similar — both entered University of Limerick, signed up for the college team, and learnt the basic skills in-house from UL Bohemian coach Ian Costello.
Between them Coghlan (prop) and Lonergan (hooker) have earned 53 caps for their country — not bad considering the smaller number of fixtures they play in comparison to their male counterparts. Coghlan, 24, was born and raised in Clontarf and immersed herself in a variety of sports in her youth such as horse-riding, ladies football, hockey and badminton. Clontarf RFC is the centre piece of the north Dublin suburb and while she followed the men’s game and the rise and rise of fellow parishioner Brian O’Driscoll, the club had no girl’s team. She arrived at UL to study PE and quickly embraced the belief that rugby is religion in the Treaty city.
“It was just the in-thing to do — play rugby in Limerick.”
Though only six years in the sport, Coghlan will prop for Ireland in Canada and has quickly has had to learn her trade in the most unforgiving of environments in rugby. “I started as hooker. At college level the scrums are uncontested so you’re getting a nice introduction to it. It wasn’t until the following year when I joined UL Bohs that it actually went into full contact. After my first contact session in the front row I couldn’t walk for two days; using muscles I didn’t even know I had. It didn’t turn me off or anything; it wasn’t that I was scared at any stage.”
While there’s gender equality at UL Bohs, Coghlan doesn’t need to be reminded of the stereotypical attitudes that exist with regard to the women’s game.
“The perception is definitely there. When I started I got the bruises and the knocks and everything but it just becomes par for the course. It’s women against women; not women against men. I played ladies football as well and did my ankles but, touch wood, I haven’t had any injuries playing rugby.”
At one stage Coghlan transferred her allegiances from Leinster to Munster but competition for places was quite serious. It’s only when she went back to Leinster that the international door opened up for her. The first of her 19 caps came against Spain when she replaced Lonergan.
“I never liked being a hooker. At that time I was hooker/prop switching between both. I was expecting to go in as prop but Jean went down injured and it was a quick get on. We lost but I don’t remember much of what went on.”
Jean Lonergan’s background is firmly embedded in the GAA but once she started playing in UL, her brothers even caught the bug and have lined out with Clonmel RFC. Already her two younger brothers, Brian and David, have represented the province at youth level.
She took a rugby module as part of her PE degree course and hung around with Rosie Foley, sister of Munster captain Anthony. Rosie then invited her out to Shannon and immediately she grew even more enamoured with the sport. It had, she felt, everything she needed in sport: great team ethic, great people and a good social life.
“Hanging around Rosie broadened my interest in rugby and, anyway, if you’re living in Limerick for four years the Munster phenomenon rubs off on you. It’s such a different sport than ladies football, I really enjoyed it and made an awful lot of friends.”
Lonergan, 29, has played in every position in the front row but is now firmly established as Ireland’s first-choice hooker. And, like Coghlan, she made a quick transition to provincial and National representative rugby after University.
“I had just finished college and I got a call up to Munster in 2000 and then the following March or I was brought into the Irish team. My first match was against France in Clontarf when I came for the last ten minutes and the European championships and gently blooded into the team really.”
Lonergan and Coghlan are PE teachers in High School CBS, Clonmel (all boys), and Lucan CC (mixed) respectively and both are endeavouring to spread the rugby gospel amongst their pupils. Lonergan already has achieved O’Brien Cup success in Munster but for Coghlan she is frustrated in her attempts to get meaningful competition for the girls, who, she admits, adore the physicality of the sport.
“The girls are allowed play with boys until 12 but, after that, you’re not allowed play until your 18. That’s a big gap and there’s a huge fallout and that’s when they lose the skills that they learnt.
“In England they have a better underage structure and they bring them through and in New Zealand it’s their national sport. That’s all they play and they play with boys the whole way through so they’ve a higher skill level. I just think a little bit more time in Ireland for the sport to grow, higher numbers participation levels and then again the money factor comes back into it.”
She added: “Sometimes I think people don’t realise there is women’s rugby. People don’t realise it’s there. It’s women’s sport in general whether they get publicity or not. We would or never will get as much as the men and I don’t see that happening in the near future.
“The numbers are increasing in the last number of years and the profile is as well. When you look at ladies football, it’s one of the great, great phenomena. But women’s gaelic has been in Ireland for so long where as rugby is relatively new here. It has only been played competitively for the last 12 years. It’s a young sport compared to women’s gaelic so hopefully in future years the numbers will increase and we just have to try and do what ever we can to get as many numbers as possible.
Ireland have been handed a tough pool where they face two top six sides and then an unknown quantity in South Africa. Her philosophy in life is all about winning, not just the glory of participation.
“We haven’t won loads of games. We are not a team that wins all the time, but when you do win it’s that special feeling that you want keep. That’s everywhere in life; when you succeed it’s a brilliant feeling.”
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