Edel McMahon: Ireland embracing the pressure in World Cup bid

Adam Griggs' side face into another must-win scenario when they take on Scotland in their final qualifier in Parma this Saturday

Tue, 21 Sep, 2021 - 15:08

Brendan O'Brien

It’s 13 years since Edel McMahon and the Considine sisters, Eimear and Ailish, helped Kilmihil’s Ladies footballers to an All-Ireland Intermediate title. Now two of them are teaming up again, in a different code, but with another enormous prize on offer this weekend.

Ailish Considine is an AFL footballer with the Adelaide Crows these days but should they beat Scotland on Saturday in the last of Ireland's three Rugby World Cup qualifiers, the other pair could be passing through Oz themselves on the way to next year’s tournament in New Zealand.

“We have known each other for a long time and it’s cool to think that we are back in the same team as well and pushing for that elite performance in whatever team we are involved in,” said McMahon. “It’s a nice link-up, a nice bit of home.”

The scenario is far from clearcut this Saturday.

Incredibly, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Scotland are all on five points after two rounds. With head-to-heads determining who finishes first and claims the one automatic slot for 2022, the Irish need to beat the Scots and hope that Spain don’t match their result against the Azzurri.

That said, beat Scotland and Adam Griggs’ side will at least be guaranteed second place and a shot at a last-ditch qualifier that will draw in sides from the various regions around the world. As for McMahon, she has already broadened her horizons in recent years.

It was 2019 when she decided to make the switch from Ireland to the UK. Based in Fethard, Co Tipperary, she was travelling up and down to Galway to play rugby with Galwegians and Connacht and the commute was taking its toll.

Now she’s in London, working and playing for Wasps, lapping up the exposure to an elite tier of club rugby in the Allianz Premier 15s and relishing the opportunity to play alongside a number of fellow Irishwomen at the club’s home ground in Acton.

“It was nice to link up with Cliodhna (Molony) and (Claire) Molloy and then this year obviously Sam (Monaghan) with Wasps and (Ciara) Cooney as well. It’s been nice to live and breath rugby to the extent I can while working as well and that has probably developed my playing ability.”

McMahon has only just moved into double figures in terms of caps. It’s a figure that speaks for the injuries she has suffered since before the last World Cup in 2017 when she had to overcome an Achilles problem.

It’s a history which she feels gives her a deeper perspective as to what it means to qualify for this next tournament, and how it must feel for those players back home and not included in the squad currently housed in northern Italy for this last few weeks.

Defeat to Spain in their opening game heaped the pressure on Ireland but they responded with a gutsy if imperfect 15-7 win against their hosts last Sunday and McMahon believes it shows that they will be ready and able to bear the weight of the occasion again third time around.

“We knew what pressure was on us last weekend. Not coming away with a result would have been a different story. There was a lot of pressure on us that weekend.

It’s a part of elite sport, it’s a part of international rugby, and I thought everyone dealt with it very well and took it as a catalyst to edge us on and be better on the pitch.

“We spoke a lot about our defensive game against Spain and how that probably wasn’t there but that was a huge talking point of our week and our prep coming in to the Italy game.

“We saw that from the get-go, from the kick-off. That set the tone for the rest of the match and that’s been a big positive for us, in how we have used the pressure and not to go into our shells and hide away from it. I think the same is coming this weekend as well.”