Ballincollig aim to climb AIL ladder after off-season of change

Ballincollig will play Galwegians in their opening game of the Women's AIL on September 27. In attendance at the season launch was Ballincollig's Aoife Madigan (back row, second from the left). Pic: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

It has been an off-season of change for Ballincollig’s senior women’s team. Helen Brosnan has departed as head coach with Santiago Gonzalez taking her place. The Argentine-Italian is well known in Cork as a community rugby coach and also head coach at Bandon Grammar School.

He will be assisted by Eugene McCarthy, the former Munster women’s scrum coach, while former Ireland internationals Laura Guest and Leah Lyons – both of whom were part of the backroom team last season – will be the defence and set piece coaches, respectively.

“We've had a lot of change, a lot of new players in, so it's very exciting at the moment,” said Ballincollig backrow Aoife Madigan.

“We're hoping that we can embed that new system fairly quickly. It's been a lot longer pre-season as well. All that's needed to push on to where we want to get to.

“We've put a leadership group in place. We've had a lot of open communication between coaches, very clear lines of communication, so we're allowed to ask any question you want. There's no misunderstanding.” 

Ballincollig finished seventh in the Energia Women’s AIL last season, winning four games. They had won five the previous season. 

“We're hoping to climb up that ladder a bit more,” said Madigan, who is originally from Limerick and now in her third season with Ballincollig.

“We're going after that fifth place playoff. Hopefully we'll get there this year, try to look after our home games, bridge that gap a little bit.

“Last year we were a different team that finished than what we started. The amount of players that had their first AIL caps was insane last year. We're a very, very young team.

“You can't replicate that in training. Sometimes you have to go out and feel that in a game situation. We had a lot more in the interpros this year, which makes a massive difference. They come back with learnings for the rest of us. Moving forward, hopefully we can use that information.” 

Last season, Wicklow doubled their tally from the previous campaign to 10 wins. Ballincollig aim to take a similar leap this season.

“We would have said we were in and around Wicklow the year before,” said Madigan.

“Wicklow took a massive jump last year, so we're hoping that maybe they were just a year or two ahead of us in development and that we're now going to follow that."