‘It is mad, it's something you dream of' – Sligo's Nicole Fowley honoured to get Ireland call for World Cup
Sligo's Nicole Fowley says it's a 'huge honour' to be selected on the Ireland squad for the upcoming Women's World Cup which gets underway next week in England.
The Drumcliffe native has been in fantastic form over the last 12 months, and while her selection in the Ireland squad was expected – at least from the outside looking in – she still considers it 'mad' to think she will be representing Ireland at a World Cup.
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Jessica Farry
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Irish Examiner
29 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Robbie Keane's Champions League dates with destiny await
Had Damien Duff not walked away before Shelbourne's European odyssey, his old Ireland partner Robbie Keane might be on the phone this week seeking insider knowledge. Ferencváros are 180 minutes away from progressing into the league phase of the Champions League for the first time in five years. Keane is at the helm and blocking their path are Qarabag. They're the Azerbaijani side that tumbled Shelbourne from the Champions League into the Europa with a 4-0 aggregate victory. Duff was still in charge of Shels when they were drawn against Linfield in the competition, ironically the team they must beat again to sample league stage involvement in the Conference League. Joey O'Brien stepped up when his boss Duff quit in June and, although he's a past Ireland colleague of Keane's too, the rapport Keane had with the latter was foremost to qualifying for a World Cup and Euros over a decade as Ireland's leading lights. Confronting Keane is an opportunity to cement himself in the Ferencváros hotseat. He delivered what was expected after being appointed in January by overseeing their club's eighth Hungarian title in a row but it's on the European stage the owners harbour ambitions of making their mark. That was evidenced by Keane selecting a second string for Saturday's league game. It resulted in the first defeat of their title defence, against rivals Puskás Akadémia too, but it was felt both a necessary and tolerable action given Qarabag go into Tuesday's first leg fresh from a weekend postponement. Prize-money rising to €20m and eight games in Uefa's premier club competition are on the line. 'I rested ten men against the Puskás Academy and we could have won if we had taken advantage of our opportunities,' said Ireland's record goalscorer at Monday's pre-match press conference. 'But that is in the past, let's leave it behind us. This is a completely different series than the league - everyone is talking about how this match is more important than anything else. "This is a big opportunity for our club because in recent years it has not had such a major chance to get into the Champions League. 'There's a huge motivation for both players and coaches to enter the highest level." By beating Ludogorets in last week's second leg, following a scoreless first 90, Keane's side have the parachute of Europa League involvement. Nevertheless, dining at the top table is what's driving the 45-year-old. Trophies were delivered during his first standalone role at Maccabi Tel Aviv, bringing eventual winners Olympiacos to extra-time in the last-16 of the Conference League, but the political backdrop influenced his decision to quit Israel. He was back on the managerial circuit six months later and has moulded an exciting team that features a sprinkling of Hungarian players Ireland will likely face in the opening World Cup qualifier in Dublin on September 6. Teenager Alex Tóth has become a target for German and Italian clubs through his midfield brilliance while 20-year-old striker Zsombor Gruber has begun the season ablaze. Veteran forward Barnabás Varga bagged a brace against the Bulgarian champions last week. Keane also has within his armoury a player he briefly crossed paths with in the Ireland squad. Callum O'Dowda was last month recruited from Brian Barry Murphy's Cardiff City, slotting straight into a left-sided role. Qarabag dumped Ferencváros out of Europe in 2022 but Keane offered a typically forthright answer when asked about it influencing this outcome. 'Why would I watch a match from three years ago!? No previous James Bond movie will be the same as the next. 'I've watched Qarabag's current matches, which are relevant. The teams are very even but I'll keep what I told my players to myself. 'I don't want to spill any information because the opposing head coach is definitely listening to the press conference. 'There are elements of the game that we need to improve on, both individually and as a team, but the most important thing will be not to concede a goal. This could be the key to progressing from this tie." Keane has his GoldenEye firmly fixed in a View to a Kill. UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PLAY-OFF, FIRST LEG Ferencváros TC v Qarabag, Groupama Aréna, Budapest (Tuesday 8pm, Irish time)
Irish Daily Mirror
29 minutes ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
'My life is on hold. It has been a kick in the balls' - Colin Hawkins opens up
His day began in a waiting room, a real-life purgatory. The clock ticked past nine when he took his seat. He recalls the noise of the water cooler; the rise and fall in volume as people passed along the corridor. Otherwise there was silence, which is not an uncommon thing on the seventh floor of the Mater Hospital, where cancer patients get their treatment. Read more: AZ Almaar manager's snappy response to question about Troy Parrott's future Read more: Shock report suggests Manchester United and Liverpool are eyeing up Ireland star And on this sunny Friday morning, this was where Colin Hawkins, one of only 20 Irish footballers to win a medal at an official World Cup event, went to discover if the cancer drug they'd given him would save his life. The clock ticked on. It was just after ten when he left his chair to take in the view from the seventh floor window; Croke Park to the right, Dalymount Park to the left. It was Dayler where Hawkins played when he was 25-years-old and considered the best defender in the League of Ireland. 'You felt invincible,' he says of his days as a professional footballer. But no one ever is. Still, at that stage of his life, the midpoint of a professional career, it is no exaggeration to say he was among the country's healthy elite. Now, as a 47-year-old man, his feelings of invincibility are over. So he sat back down for his appointment and waited, every second feeling like a minute, every minute an hour. Time passed. Time didn't heal. He thought about his upbringing. He was one of ten children, the only one of his siblings to become a professional athlete, a four-times winner of the League of Ireland, later a player with Coventry City in England's Championship, Europe's fifth best attended league. 'I probably took my health for granted,' he says. 'Put it this way, it was a big shock to my nine siblings that I was the one who got so ill. 'It can't be you, you are the sports guy', they said.' But it was him because cancer is a democratic illness. Anyone can be diagnosed with it. A King of England died from it. It doesn't discriminate against rich or poor. 'It is two-and-a-half years since I was first diagnosed,' Hawkins says. 'And the thing you learn about this life is that you don't know when your time is (up). 'I don't feel punished or whatever. It is just unlucky. Still, if you ever want a wake-up call about why you should enjoy every day of your life, go into the Mater every Friday. 'Walk to the seventh floor. Go into the waiting room where you receive your treatment. You are handed a number. A person sits to your left, another to your right. 'I keep asking, 'how is this place so busy? Are more and more people getting cancer than ever before?' Their answer is actually reaffirming. 'No,' they tell me, 'more and more people are surviving.' Colin Hawkins is drawing the positives from life. (Image: ©INPHO/Donall Farmer) By now it was 11am. He still had the ticket in his hand. It resembled a small raffle ticket, a beige colour. He waited and thought back to 2023 when he started to feel unwell. By the time he discovered he had cancer in his blood, the pain became practically unbearable. He subsequently needed surgery on his neck and his back. 'When the myeloma is alive and active, that is when your bones break,' he says matter of factly. 'When it is gone and under control, all that pain is gone.' Good news came. He received stem cell treatment and entered remission. Then terrible news followed. His wife, Elaine, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Telling their three children this news was the hardest day of their lives. Better days came after that. Elaine's treatment worked. She, thankfully, is in remission. Life returned to normal for a while until his old pains resurfaced. He visited Dr O'Gorman in the Mater to review a new drug he had been on for six weeks. 'Your numbers have gone through the roof and your myeloma has gone crazy again,' he was told. 'We need to take you off this drug and get you on a new one.' That was three months ago. He had to check into the hospital that night and ended up staying for a month to see if he could deal with the side-effects of the drug. He got pancreatitis. There is pain and then there is pain. Pancreatitis was hell. But this feeling he had on that Friday morning was way worse, sitting on a blue chair, holding a beige-coloured ticket, staring at the clock, waiting and wondering. If the news was good, if he was told the drug was working, then life would go on. He'd return to work 'to CPM, the best employers in the world who have looked after me while I have been ill'. But if this drug wasn't working, what then? Was there a fifth drug they could try? He hadn't asked. 'Sitting in that room, waiting for that news was the first time I was seriously worried. Three treatments had failed. 'I had my bloods taken the day before. I had scans. As the clock ticked towards noon. I was waiting to be told if my numbers had improved or got worse. 'I have always fought it (his cancer) head on. This was the first time when I realised this was a trial drug; so if this doesn't work then what the hell is the next treatment?' The stem cell transplant he had received was supposed to give him ten years in remission. 'For the cancer to come back after 18 months was kind of unheard of for my age. I was obviously nervous waiting for the result.' Nervous waiting for a result! He remembers the first time he issued those words, back in 1998. He was a St Pat's player then. They won that year's League of Ireland title on the last day of the season, beating Kilkenny City away. But to become champions, they needed Dundalk to defeat their rivals, Shelbourne. So they waited for a result from Oriel Park. They got the news they wanted. The following year something similar happened, Pat's beating Bray on the final day of the season to win back-to-back titles. Consumed by the game, he worked to make the most of what he had, reaching an incredibly high level, representing his country at underage level, winning bronze at the 1997 Under 20 World Cup. And when he spent a month in the Mater Hospital over Easter, all those players from all those teams came in to visit. Brian Kerr, his Ireland manager in 1997, checks in at least once a week. Brian Kerr, the former St Pat's and Ireland manager, is still a regular at Saints games (Image: ©INPHO/Tom Maher) 'Brian has been incredible,' Hawkins says. 'He has such a big heart. Football people, they're great. They don't forget. They remember the big nights, you being there for them on the pitch. "This time they were there for me. All these years later and the dressing room spirit is still strong. It's why football is special.' Yet now all those characteristics which made him such a winner were being put to the test. He says: 'My life is on hold. Thursday I get the bloods done, Friday my treatment. It has been a kick in the balls. That is where my life is at the moment. 'I am not working because I don't have the energy. My immune system is really low. I kind of feel I have a permanent flu or a chest infection.' Yet he isn't feeling sorry for himself because he has spoken to people in the chair next to him in that waiting room, swiftly realising if they have no hope. And on this Friday morning three and a half hours elapsed before Dr O'Gorman called. And that was when the man who played in a World Cup U20 semi-final for Ireland, got up off the blue chair and walked into a doctor's office. In those steps, the fact he had been a champion footballer on four different occasions ceased to matter. He was just another number, waiting to hear if his cancer drug was helping. 'It is,' said Professor O'Gorman. 'You are responding well.' That was eight weeks ago. Today Colin Hawkins is in remission. This champion football player has just won the biggest prize of his life. Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email .
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Front row move proved to be Niamh O'Dowd's 'golden ticket' to World Cup
It's not much more than two years since Niamh O'Dowd was a flanker struggling for game time with Old Belvedere. Now she's on the brink of her first World Cup with Ireland where, when push comes to shove, she will be the starting loosehead prop. O'Dowd thinks now of the back rows that Ireland fielded at the time. There were giants of the women's game like Claire Molloy and Ciara Griffin. Brittany Hogan, now the team's No.8, was starting to embed herself, too. 'Like, I wouldn't have even put myself in the same hemisphere." That's now. She wasn't even thinking about Ireland back then. How could she with the strength in depth at Old Belvo where Jenny Murphy and Jennie Finlay, both former internationals, were before her in the queue. Hogan was another of them on those weekends where she wasn't busy with the Irish sevens. Same with talents like Erin King, world XVs breakthrough player of the year in 2024, and Deirbhile Nic a Bhaird who just missed out on the latest tournament squad. 'It was actually almost as competitive as the Irish back row.' O'Dowd had never played rugby until she followed her older sister into the UCD club in college. That led to 'Belvo' just up the road in Ballsbridge and a slow but steady progression as a flanker that eventually took her as far as the interpros. Then everything changed. 'I remember very clearly. It was a Thursday down in Belvo. It was actually [former Ireland player] Ailis Egan and Tania [Rosser, Leinster head coach] came up to me, and they just said, 'you're gonna be a loosehead'. 'Now, before that they had been playing around with the idea of hooker, but they said, 'no, no, you can't throw'. So they eventually decided I'd be a loosehead and I went down to Ballincollig for my first game, starting front row, and I absolutely hated it. 'I'd gone from being so carefree, just running around the place, doing whatever I wanted, absolutely no responsibility. Every knock on, I was like, 'Oh my God, here we go again'. You know what I really realised? I have to get so much fitter now.' There was no more catching her breath come scrum time, but fitness was just one missing piece of this puzzle. O'Dowd didn't know how to bind, or where her feet went, or what height she should hold. None of it. The education process started at the club and Ireland scrum coach Denis Fogarty pitched in once she made the Celtic Challenge level. Cue endless technical work, video analysis and pointers from teammates. Linda Djougang was an invaluable resource as the Ireland tighthead packed down opposite her in training sessions. So too Christy Haney, the loosehead who will miss this World Cup with injury, and hookers like Neve Jones. 'Every single session, every single rep, you're learning something.' Now a career that was inching forward was making big, galloping strides. It was at the WXV1s in Canada late last year where O'Dowd worked a groove for herself in the starting front row and she hasn't been budged since. Small in stature, she had all the right answers when giving 12 and six kilos respectively to France's Rose Bernadou and Clara Joyeux in the opening round of the Six Nations in Belfast earlier this year. O'Dowd was rock solid at the setpiece despite being asked to put in a 77-minute shift, and she decorated that with more successful tackles (14) than anyone in green and with only Aoife Wafer carrying more ball. Three rounds later and that picture was skewed when England's Maud Muir had her in all sorts of trouble at the scrum and referee Aurelie Groizeleau made her pay with ten minutes in the sinbin just after half-time. One of the Irish coaches put it into perspective afterwards when reminding her that pretty much every prop in the history of rugby has had those days, and O'Dowd herself is first to say that her learning curve hasn't flattened out just yet. She's ready for the work still to come, and immensely grateful for that curveball of a switch that will see her play in a World Cup when she was struggling to get off the bench for Belvo when the last one was contested in 2022. 'The front row was my golden ticket, and still is, to be honest. Like, it's always a position that's going to be needed.'
