Ireland women’s squad look to shut out noise as much-changed team named to face USA

The wider backlash against comments by Anthony Eddy, the IRFU's director of sevens and women's rugby, has left the Ireland players in an unenviable position this week

Ireland’s Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe. Picture: INPHO/Giuseppe Fama

The Ireland women’s squad has not held a collective meeting to discuss comments made by Anthony Eddy, the IRFU’s director of sevens and women’s rugby, earlier this week.

Eddy defended the IRFU’s twin-track approach between the sevens and 15s games, as well as the preparations in place for the side that failed to qualify for next year’s World Cup when losing two of three games in Parma back in September.

He also said that the squad put too much pressure on itself and that this fed into poor performances.

The backlash to his comments and their tone has been fierce with a number of former women’s players expressing their outright disgust and current international Cliodhna Moloney, who is right now in camp preparing for Friday’s game against the USA, comparing them to slurry on Twitter.

Her teammate Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe has confirmed that the squad did meet up post-Parma to share their thoughts and feelings about that crushing blow but added that there has been no such get-together in the wake of Eddy’s controversial interview.

Blocking out the noise seems to be the order of the day for now.

“Yeah, sometimes it can be difficult, I’m not going to lie, but I feel like when we come into that bubble and the team is around you, we are all focused on the one thing, which is Friday night’s game. That’s the key for this week.

“It helps you wipe out that noise and distraction and just focus on your sessions.”

Murphy Crowe also confirmed that she had yet to be approached for her thoughts by those in charge of the independent review into that World Cup failure.

Facing the media with all this going on in the background is an unenviable position for any player to be in two days before an international, but such is the way of things as the angst surrounding an underperforming side and the system supposed to support it builds.

Moloney’s declaration of dissatisfaction spoke for that.

“I’ll support Cliodhna, she’s my team-mate,” said Murphy Crowe when asked about what was a very rare example of a current player sticking their neck out on such matters, regardless of the sport.

“I’ll support all my teammates but that’s Cliodhna’s comment and for me personally throughout the next three days I’m solely focused on the game. I don’t like to delve into too many distractions because it could affect our performance and that’s not what I’d like to do.”

Nichola Fryday also opted against a dissection of Moloney’s comments. "For us as a group, we're very tight-knit but we all have our individual thoughts on things,” she said, while agreeing that players should be entitled to voice their opinions.

“I can't speak for the group,” Fryday said. “I can only speak for me. For me, what happened in Parma was hugely disappointing. It's something I would have been working for since the last World Cup.

“I didn't get the opportunity to play in the last one and that was my sole focus, so to not achieve that, it was heart-breaking. We just have to regather and go again. I'm putting my trust in the independent review that is being done.

“There is no one thing that led to us not qualifying for the World Cup, so I'm putting my trust in the independent review, that we will feed into it, and that the other issues and factors that led to us not qualifying will come through that.”

Meanwhile, head coach Adam Griggs has named a much-changed side for the visit of the Americans from the one which lost to Scotland in the last of those World Cup qualifiers. In all, only eight of the starters from that game go again on Friday.

The XV includes Anna Caplice who hasn’t been capped since the 2020 Six Nations while Munster back row Maeve Óg O’Leary is the only uncapped player listed on the 23 after her impressive interpro displays earlier this year.

The game will be Griggs’ second-last before handing the reins over to the incoming Greg McWilliams. The side also faces Japan at the RDS on Saturday week.

Ireland (v USA): L Delany; L Sheehan, E Considine, S Naoupu, B Parsons; S Flood, A Hughes; L Peat, C Moloney, L Lyons; N Fryday, S Monaghan; C Griffin, E McMahon, A Caplice.

Replacements: N Jones, K O’Dwyer, L Djougang, H O’Connor, M Óg O’Leary, K Dane, E Higgins, AL Murphy Crowe.