Ireland's Aoife Wafer on track to face world champion Black Ferns

Aoife Wafer takes a selfie with fans from Towcestrians rugby club. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady.

Key back row Aoife Wafer is on track to return from injury in time for Ireland’s World Cup Pool C shootout with New Zealand’s reigning champions in Brighton next Sunday week.

The 2025 Six Nations player of the year has been injured since the back end of that tournament with a knee problem and missed two warm-up games against Scotland and Canada, plus the World Cup opener against Japan as a result.

She will also play no part against Spain this weekend.

The Wexford woman stayed behind in Dublin to continue her recovery when the team first decamped to their England base earlier this month before arriving the night before that first game against the Asian side.

“She’s now back on pitch,” said head coach Scott Bemand.

“She is fully supported in terms of individualized rehab support that’s traveled with her. She's involved in aspects of training as we go through last week, continuing to this week.

“We're starting to dial that up. So as we sit here now, all bets are on for next week. How we choose to deploy that we'll keep checking in day by day, as we've all said. But fair play to her, she's tracking really well.

“She's in the space that we all want to see her play. The nation wants to see her on the pitch. And hopefully we're getting closer to that.”

And Bemand has rejected suggestions that a starting 15 with seven changes for the Spain tie could be interpreted as Ireland having one eye on that Black Ferns clash in Brighton, even as they find themselves 80 minutes away from a place in the last eight.

“Not internally. This is our first chance to nail that, that quarter-final position. We've absolutely gone in for it. We've been going for it in training, which is why it's important that the people have had the opportunity to be allowed to compete for this position.

“So we think that there's a couple of tactical changes, which gives us slightly different things to what we showed against Japan. Now it's just about getting the job done at the business end.”