'We don't stop here' - Irish women vow to keep inspiring after World Cup run

Scott Bemand's side were ultimately edged out by France at Sandy Park on Sunday.

Tue, 16 Sep, 2025 - 06:45

Simon Lewis

As expected, the semi-final line-up for this weekend’s Women’s Rugby World Cup contains no surprises after the top four teams in the tournament lived up to their billing and advanced from the quarter-finals.

It was plain sailing for most of the game’s heavyweights as hosts and favourites England dispatched Scotland, second-seeded Canada saw off Australia with ease and defending champions New Zealand took care of South Africa with little fuss.

Yet France’s victory over Ireland was anything but straightforward; a tense, tight struggle that gives the fifth-ranked Irish genuine optimism they can bridge the gap to the top four by the time the next World Cup comes around in Australia 2029.

That Scott Bemand’s side will be kicking themselves for having failed to reach the semi-finals after being edged 18-13 at Exeter’s Sandy Park on Sunday is a testament to the progress made since the women started to re-scale the rankings, having dragged themselves off the floor after a second successive Six Nations wooden spoon and failure to qualify for the previous World Cup in New Zealand.

Which is why deep disappointment mingled with pride at the journey taken and a strong conviction within the squad that Ireland’s improvement will gather further pace in the next four years.

Captain Sam Monaghan told her players as much as she gathered the squad into a circle on the Sandy Park pitch at full-time.

“Sam spoke, and just said how proud she is of all of us, and we don't stop here,” loosehead prop Niamh O’Dowd said. “We’ve grown so much and we have so much more to give. So, yeah, it doesn't stop now.”

O’Dowd, 25, is one of the majority of the squad in their 20s with only three of Sunday’s matchday 23 aged 30 or over. One of those, 32-year-old replacement hooker Cliodhna Moloney Macdonald, was the only player in the 32-strong group at the tournament who had had previous experience of a World Cup, having played in the 2017 edition.

Green wave

While the age profile of this squad is another reason for optimism, the growing numbers of female participants in the game, swept along by the IRFU’s Green Wave is an exciting prospect for the future success of the Ireland Women’s XVs, in 2029 and beyond.

Full-back Stacey Flood, a first-half try scorer against France, is a firm believer of that both the current crop and the immediate next generation’s ceiling is high enough to give genuine hope for continuing progress.

“I think our green wave is growing but also the number of players we have competing is growing, and I think the gap is shortening throughout all,” Flood said.

“Even last week (in the pool loss to New Zealand), a few scores at the end of that game make it a different game. And I think the more we grow rugby in Ireland, the more girls that are competing, we'll keep closing those gaps.

“And you can see the uptake in numbers and what it is doing for the country. And I think more young girls playing, even young boys playing, will get the snowball even more and that’s what we're about. We didn't get the performance we wanted or the results we wanted today, but we've inspired so many young girls to go take up a rugby ball, and that's exactly what our team want to do.

“And so that means, in four years’ time, there's more people competing for a green jersey. We're definitely going to close the gap even more.”

O’Dowd is hoping some of those girls who followed Ireland over to the World Cup or watched the games on television this time around become internationals themselves at future tournaments.

“That’s our higher purpose, I guess, is those girls at home. If we can inspire one or two little girls at home that's the job done for us. As well as that the supporters who came over and who came over for the pool games as well, we're so grateful. We literally hear every single one of them, yeah. It honestly means so much to us.”