Return of the King: Erin rebounds from a career in jeopardy to Ireland captain

The former sevens star was revealed as the new XVs' skipper on Thursday afternoon.

NEW ERA: Erin King has been named Ireland Women's captain ahead of the 2026 Guinness Women's Six Nations. The 22-year-old flanker will lead Ireland into the Championship, which gets underway against England at Twickenham on Saturday, 11 April. Pic: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile

The surrounds are cold and slightly sterile at the IRFU’s high performance centre in Abbotstown until Erin King enters the small dressing-room set aside for the interview and suddenly there is an energy that could light the entire building.

The back row is still buzzing off the conversation held last week with Scott Bemand when the head coach asked her to be the national side’s new captain at the age of just 22. Having accepted, she will be the youngest in the team’s history.

Even Brian O’Driscoll was a year older when he got the men’s nod a generation ago.

If this is a week of weeks, then this effervescence is typical of the woman and of the player. King is all perpetual motion and hustle and intensity on the park. That same enthusiasm sparks as she sits and explains how her life just got turned upside down.

Or is that right way up again?

It’s not long since she was fearing for her future as a rugby player after tearing cartilage off the back of her kneecap against England in last year’s Six Nations and needed a new form of surgery that used the collagen of a pig to fix it.

It was a torturous nine months, and all the worse for the fact that it forced her into a watching brief for the team’s World Cup campaign in England. All of which she was open and honest about in the course of her rehab.

“When I first got injured I wanted to be open and honest with everyone. I was really scared. My life revolves around rugby and it's what gives me so much. And I was obviously really scared. I was 21 years of age and got told I might not run again. It's quite a scary position to be in.

“But I had great physios and teammates around me telling me that, ‘if anyone can do it you can’. I came in every day and, even if I didn't make it back, I wanted to say at least I gave it everything. There were some really, really dark days but I guess that's just life. You have to kind of go down to come up and that's what I've gone through.” Her friends and teammates rallied around.

King shares a house with Ireland teammates Beibhinn Parsons, Aoibheann O’Reilly and Niamh O’Dowd. They moved her bedroom downstairs when she was stuck in a knee brace for 12 long weeks. Team barbecues were a regular source of enjoyment and reassurance.

“If I didn't have them I wouldn't have been able to get through it.” 

Her first hour of rugby since all that has been bagged with the Wolfhounds in the last two weeks. Another 60 minutes is planned for the next round of Celtic League matches as she goes about preserving the positives from such a dark chapter.

“I definitely have a lot more confidence. I've said it to a few people that if Scott asked me to be captain a year ago, before I did this [injury], I probably wouldn't have embraced it as much as I have now.

“I have so much confidence with it and I have so much to give and I have so much passion and energy. There's so much I want to give to the green jersey and to the girls. I'm so fresh and I'm so ready to go.” 

There are crumbs to follow as she finds her way in the new gig. Lucy Mulhall was a wonderful captain when she joined the sevens side as a 17-year old. Sam Monaghan and Edel McMahon, last year’s joint captains, are still part of the XVs leadership group.

The choice of King makes sense in more ways than one.

She was World Breakthrough Player of the Year in XVs in 2024 after going viral for her lift of teammate Emily Lane at the Paris Olympics, and there is a maturity there that goes beyond the years that can serve as a lightning rod for the group.

This is a player who was comfortable enough to remove herself from parts of the squad’s World Cup warm-up as she rehabbed in the same building when that felt right for her. She gets the needs of the individual and of the collective on the road ahead.

The coaches have told her not to change who she is, to lead as she always has. A new four-year World Cup cycle kicks off in April when the women’s Six Nations returns. This is a new road for the team, and the choice of on-field leader only emphasises it.

“Hopefully I'll be able to captain these girls to the next World Cup and hopefully win the next World Cup. I don't see why not.”