Emily Lane: 'The men are great and all, but the women are great too'

HERO'S WELCOME: Emily Lane high-fives students from Dundonald Primary School on her way out the tunnel. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady

A stunningly successful WXV1 series behind them, a World Cup to come later in the year, and a Six Nations opener against the French in the happy hunting ground that is Belfast in the here and now. These are good times for the Irish women’s team.

Let’s stop and drink that much in for a bit.

Wooden spoons, a failure to qualify for the last World Cup and off-field issues had plagued the team for far too long. If days and vibes like these were even contemplated before then they were mere chimeras, a refuge for the hopeless romantic.

That sense of regeneration is shared elsewhere. The short stint US superstar Ilon Maher spent with Bristol Bears in the English PWR brought record attendances and a spike in media interest for the game ahead of its hosting of the global tournament come August.

“I think women's rugby is sort of having its moment and I hope that continues,” said Ireland’s Emily Lane.

“We all love the game and we just want as many people to see us play, and to know that women's rugby is really exciting and it is really tough. And it's not all about the men. I mean, they're great and all, but the women are great too.” The context to this opener is fascinating.

England have won the last seven Championships, and beaten France 13 times in a row, but the visitors here have pushed them close at times and have stood any number of rungs above the other four nations on the Six Nations ladder.

Ireland’s fall down the rankings curdled into a spiral that was only stopped when Scott Bemand was made head coach and the various support staff and structures and semi-pro contracts were finally put together by the IRFU.

That all led to a third-place finish in the 2024 tournament, qualification for the 2025 World Cup and that remarkable showing in Canada last autumn when they beat the world champion New Zealanders and the USA and finished runners-up in WXV1.

France could only muster fifth having lost two of their games, heavily, to the Black Ferns and the hosts. So the question that will be answered today is how much the gap between the French and Ireland has closed. Somewhat? Or completely?

Bemand has put on record the ambition to make a mark against one of the Six Nations’ Big Two, and to push on to a point where they become contenders again for the World Cup title itself. Heady stuff. And Lane’s take echoes it.

“We are looking to perform and try to win this game. We've been training together and the training's been very, very tough. France are a really tough side and there's no denying that, but I think Ireland are a tough side too. And we really want to give them a good rattle.” Ireland, like everyone else, will be taking a two-pronged approach to the next six weeks. The Six Nations remains a staple part of the annual diet but there is a need to build themselves up for the bigger carrot to come in the late summer.

Bemand has found a solid core of players around which to build his XV and his matchday 23, but there is a parallel focus on widening the net and getting game time into players who remain, forgive the pun, green at this elite level.

Four of the squad here have less than ten caps. That includes the explosive back row Erin King who has emerged as such a star in a very short period of time. Even Aoife Wafer, the new sensation at No.8, has only eleven caps to her name.

Ireland are without Sam Monaghan through injury for the tournament. Edel McMahon, her co-captain last year, starts on a bench boasting a 6/2 split that is no doubt predicated on the basis of the nature of the threat in the opposing shed.

Clichés abounded about the French this week. They are explosive, physical and they have world-class players in the form of scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus and the winger Marine Menager. The word ‘joué’ was even thrown about.

One concern for the hosts is the lack of exposure to high-quality rugby approaching this. Five of this matchday squad play in the PWR in England, the rest have been making do with a Celtic Challenge event that fails utterly to test them properly.

The Wolfhounds and Clovers once again sauntered to the top two positions in the table with the former finishing champions on the back of a 102-0 defeat of Edinburgh in Donnybrook earlier this month. Not ideal.

These players stepped up last year, though. Now they have to do it again.