McMahon vows Ireland pack won't curb expansive instincts

Clare's Edel McMahon grew up playing Gaelic games in Kilmihil with Irish teammate Eimear Considine

24 March 2022; Edel McMahon during Ireland Women's Rugby squad training at the IRFU High Performance Centre at the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

THEY may have been repeatedly steamrolled by a clinical Welsh maul last week but it wasn’t all bad news for the Irish pack.

Lock forward Sam Monaghan produced a few one-handed reverse off-loads that were social media catnip, eagerly pounced upon and shared by new Six Nations sponsors TikTok.

Her overall performance — 17 tackles, three offloads, eight lineout catches — also made her one of three Irish players (with Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe and Eve Higgins) to make Rugby World magazine’s ‘W6N Team of the Week’.

Monaghan (28) is a remarkably late bloomer. A former All-Ireland U16 winning goalkeeper with Meath, she just took up rugby socially when she moved to Brighton five years ago.

She only made her international debut in Ireland’s ill-fated World Cup qualifiers last Autumn so last Saturday was only her fifth Irish cap.

Yet her performance was no surprise to her Wasps’ clubmate Edel McMahon.

"Sam's brilliant, she's an athlete. Even from our first day at Wasps, you knew she had the eagerness to learn and the raw ability. It was just about getting game-time so she could get more comfortable in her position. She's really, really started to shine.

"We had an internal game with Ireland and she made the same offload, and to Linda [Djougang] as well. It's just something that you know she's going to do and I think that helps even with the support lines.

"I see her doing those offloads in training and am not surprised that she's gotten a few charge-downs (either) because she's a bit of a charge-down queen now," says the flanker known to her teammates as ‘Tricky’.

In many ways Monaghan’s roundabout journey to rugby closely mirrors her own.

She grew up playing Gaelic games in Kilmihil with Irish teammate Eimear Considine, co-captaining Clare to an All-Ireland minor football title and winning a junior club All-Ireland in 2008 when she was just 14.

McMahon has also played Aussie Rules for Ireland and didn’t take up rugby until she went to NUIG where Monahan also studied, though their paths never crossed then.

She looked set to make her Irish breakthrough at the 2017 World Cup but was stalled by a ruptured Achilles, delaying her debut until 2018.

Her progress since has also been stymied by knee injuries, the latest in a club game before Christmas, so getting her 14th cap at openside in Ireland’s new-look back-row was a big milestone.

Five of Ireland’s starting forwards against Wales play their club rugby abroad.

Despite working full-time as a biochemist, McMahon moved to England to accelerate her game so is the Irish pack benefitting from players like her and Monaghan getting a higher standard of club rugby in Britain?

She bursts the myth that it is streets ahead of the AIL.

"At Wasps we have only two players — Abby Dow and Claud (Claudia) MacDonald — that are full-time professionals. Everyone else at the club is working part-time or full-time, like myself and Sam.

"I think the biggest help from playing in the Premiership is that you come up against those Welsh, Scottish and English players week in, week out. That level of familiarity makes it easier.

"You know what they play like and the unknown factor is less. You're not intimidated by those teams because you regularly play against those players."

She says Ireland’s forwards are also benefitting from new Irish coach Greg Mc Williams giving them licence to play more expansively.

"Greg does promote that style of you want to be brave but you want to see that we have that structure too. If the door opens you take it, you go with your gut. If you make a mistake you make a mistake, but at least be brave enough to try it."

Ireland lost some totemic leaders since last season, especially in the pack, meaning that a gutsy approach could take some time to yield results.

McMahon remains optimistic, pointing to how Ireland made feasts from scraps last time out.

The forwards face an even bigger physical challenge in Toulouse on Saturday (2:15pm) considering France’s starting pack last week had 221 caps compared to Ireland’s 86.

Will they not be tempted to just stick it up their jumpers if they’re under even heavier siege this time?

"No, I don't think that's ever an Irish way," the Clare back-row insists.

"When Wales got ahead and we had a player in the bin, Nichola [Fryday, team captain] was like 'we're the Irish, we don't go down fighting - we keep going!'

"We're definitely not going to shy away from it. The chance to play against a top-three team in the world doesn’t come often so we’re relishing it and definitely not going to go into our shells."