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Irish Examiner
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Abrahams hails 'great leader' Beirne
Thaakir Abrahams praised Tadhg Beirne's leadership as Munster celebrated their captain's recognition as Men's XVs Players' Players of the Year 2025 at the Rugby Players Ireland Awards. Beirne is set to lead Munster into their URC quarter-final against the Sharks in South Africa on Saturday and sent a video message from the team's hotel in Durban which was played at the awards ceremony at Aviva Stadium on Wednesday night. Ireland team-mate Finlay Bealham collected the award on Beirne's behalf at the event after the lock, three weeks on from his selection for a second British & Irish Lions tour, topped a vote of his peers ahead of fellow Munster player Tom Farrell, and Leinster and Ireland stars Caelan Doris and Jamison Gibson-Park. The Munster players woke up to news of Beirne's award on Thursday morning and speaking later to the Irish Examiner from Durban, Abrahams said: 'He's such a great leader. 'He always speaks up in the huddles and things like that but I think he's also a leader that leads by example, which is really good for us. He will always step up and show us the way. 'When it was mentioned this morning, everyone was surrounding him, it was good. 'We can't celebrate too hard now before the game but definitely after the game we'll have a celebration for him. We celebrate moments like that, we're a tight group.' Doris did collect an award in his capacity as Ireland captain after his side's Triple Crown success in this season's Six Nations was recognised as Moment of the Year, while one of the warmest receptions went to Men's Sevens Players' Player of the Year Dylan O'Grady, with the Irish rugby community to still coming to terms with the IRFU's decision to end the men's sevens programme. Interviewed on stage by awards co-presenters and former players Barry Murphy and Andrew Trimble, O'Grady said of that decision: 'Obviously very disappointed at the news of the last few weeks but it's been a tough year for all of us. 'I couldn't be prouder of the lads. We've found ourselves in difficult positions this year but heart and fight we all showed throughout the year, we can all be really proud of. 'You look back to Cape Town, togging out with eight lads (after a virus within the squad). Anyone who's played sevens knows that playing with only one sub can be quite difficult so, yeah, couldn't be prouder of the lads and the fight we put up this whole year with our backs up against the wall.' Reflecting on his time in the Sevens programme, O'Grady said: 'It's been an unbelievable honour for me to be able to travel the world and get to represent our country on big stages and be ambassadors for rugby in areas that probably wouldn't see a whole lot of rugby, your Hong Kongs, Singapore and Vancouver. 'So to be able to do that and hopefully make the IRFU proud and everyone in Ireland proud is a huge honour for me.'
Extra.ie
5 days ago
- Sport
- Extra.ie
Why emerging Ireland tour is vital step on road to World Cup
These summer development tours tend to be more relaxed excursions. Paul O'Connell, the second interim head coach of the national team this season, will take a largely experimental squad to Georgia and Portugal in July. The whole project will have a distinctly off-Broadway vibe. The British and Irish Lions tour will be grabbing the majority of the media attention. Save for a small travelling press corps, an inexperienced coaching team and a largely youthful squad won't be under much scrutiny. It lends to a more relaxed atmosphere. Things happen on these tours which would never transpire during a summer series in the southern hemisphere, the Six Nations or the autumn internationals. The Ireland team with IRFU President Declan Madden. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady In the midst of the 2017 tour of the US and Japan, a group of Irish journalists were left stranded after taking in a late-night baseball game in downtown Tokyo when their scheduled taxi never turned up. Joe Schmidt and a host of young players were at the same event, and the then-Ireland head coach offered the same reporters a lift back to their hotel on the team bus. Always a stickler for detail, Schmidt then informed the journalists on board that it was tradition for first-timers on the team coach to sing a song. This gig can take you down some strange avenues. It wouldn't have happened on the week of an All Blacks game, that's for sure. Head Coach Joe Schmidt. Pic: INPHO/Laszlo Geczo Yes, these expeditions have a more old-school feel to them but there are massive benefits to be reaped from testing some fringe players on foreign lands. Andrew Porter, James Ryan and Jacob Stockdale made their international debuts on that summer tour eight years ago. Andrew Conway had a solitary Test cap to his name. Joey Carbery had played just three games for his country. Josh van der Flier, Finlay Bealham, Jack Conan and Dan Leavy had a total of 16 caps between them. Ronan O'Gara, Felix Jones and Girvan Dempsey also travelled as coaching apprentices. Suffice it to say, a lot of those investments paid off down the line. Ronan O'Gara Pic: XAVIER LEOTY / AFP Watching on from Australia, Andy Farrell will be keeping close tabs on what transpires in Tbilisi and Lisbon. It won't just be the performances on the field which pique the Ireland head coach's interest; Farrell will be eager to hear which players thrived in the environment. Which players got out of their comfort zone and showed potential to be a Test regular? Which players struggled and went into their shells? It will all go into the post-tour report. This two-game series might feel small and inconsequential when stacked up against the Lions tour Down Under. However, there is plenty at stake for the players on duty. This is a chance to lay down a marker ahead of the autumn internationals as well as the 2026 Six Nations. It's clear that Ireland is in need of some fresh blood and a reboot after a middling season thus far. The summer presents an opportunity for the next generation to state their case. Pic:And there will be opportunities aplenty. Ireland's record haul of 15 Lions this summer has opened up numerous slots in the touring squad. Cian Healy, Peter O'Mahony and Conor Murray are retiring from Test duty, while Caelan Doris and Robbie Henshaw are long-term injury absentees. No doubt, a few more seasoned frontliners might take the summer off to rest up and get their bodies right for next season. O'Connell and the rest of his backroom team will get to drill down into the front-row stocks. It almost feels like that Georgia game was designed to put the heat on Ireland's fledgling props. Finlay Bealham and Tom O'Toole will be brought on the flight to lend their considerable experience, but this summer will be all about seeing whether the likes of Jack Boyle, Tom Clarkson, Michael Milne and Paddy McCarthy can take the heat at scrum time. Boyle and Clarkson have made big strides in the past 12 months. The Irish management will be hoping they take a few more steps forward in July. Ireland's James Ryan. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan The second row is another department, which is wide open. Tadhg Beirne, Joe McCarthy and James Ryan will be on Lions duty, so this is a huge opportunity for some young locks to catch the eye. Iain Henderson is likely to tour as the elder statesman, guiding a young crew featuring his Ulster teammate Cormac Izuchuckwu, Munster pair Tom Ahern and Edwin Edogbo, as well as Connacht lock Darragh Murray. Back row? Despite the absence of some big names is an area which is loaded with talent. Ryan Baird and Max Deegan will fancy their chances of seeing plenty of game time, while Connacht captain Cian Prendergast has been a regular fixture in Ireland squads for quite some time. The big question is whether the Munster duo of John Hodnett and Gavin Coombes can make an impression. Neither has felt the love from Farrell, but a big tour can change perceptions. Ulster flanker James McNabney deserves a spot, too. Craig Casey. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile Craig Casey would be a good shout for tour captain, while Sam Prendergast and Jack Crowley should benefit from a tour out of the spotlight. Connacht scrumhalf Ben Murphy should be rewarded for a brilliant URC campaign, while Ciarán Frawley will look to make up lost ground after a season which promised so much, but delivered so little. Jamie Osborne is likely to play a big role on tour, and the versatile Leinster player could easily slot in at inside centre or full-back. Hugh Gavin and Hugh Cooney are rising forces in the game, but surely Tom Farrell has done enough to make the cut. The in-form Munster centre may be 31, but his form has been compelling since he made the switch from Connacht last summer. Farrell deserves an Ireland cap at this stage, and he could play a huge role in the second half of this World Cup cycle. Jacob Stockdale, Shayne Bolton, Tommy O'Brien, Zac Ward and Calvin Nash will all be jostling for position in a stacked backfield with Hugo Keenan, Mack Hansen and James Lowe in Oz. Plenty of pace and power among that contingent.
The 42
24-05-2025
- Business
- The 42
Tumultuous time for 7s as IRFU stick by decision to axe men's team
THE IRELAND MEN's sevens team were scheduled to play Czechia, Belgium and Georgia in the beautiful seaside town of Makarska in Croatia in a few weeks. That's where the first leg of the Rugby Europe Sevens Championship takes place, with the second leg to follow in Hamburg, Germany on the last weekend of June. Ireland won the European series in 2023 and were runners-up to France last year. This competition might not grab many headlines, but it's part of the proud record that Ireland have put together over the past decade. But sadly, though the players' contracts run until the end of the year, it looks unlikely that Ireland will be there in Makarska for what was supposed to be the end point of their 2024/25 season. Instead, they're facing up to the end of their professional sevens careers. It's only eight days since confirmation of that landed from the IRFU. The players and staff who are losing their jobs are still reeling. They met with IRFU performance director David Humphreys on Monday to discuss the axing of the programme. Some left that meeting frustrated and feeling like questions remain unanswered, even if it's welcome that they will be paid until the end of the year. The IRFU has stuck firmly to its line that this is a financially driven decision amid challenging times in sevens. They felt others would follow their lead. Just yesterday, Great Britain scrapped its full-time men's and women's sevens programme. The British teams will still be on the SVNS Series, but will only meet up for training camps before each competition. There were separate England, Wales, and Scotland sevens teams up until 2023 when they combined as Great Britain due to funding issues. Now, the RFU, WRU, and Scottish Rugby are cutting back again due to 'continuing financial pressures associated with the sevens game and ongoing explorations as to the role the format can continue to play in player development systems.' That language is familiar to anyone who has been following this story in Ireland. It's not just sevens where unions are feeling the pinch. The 15s game faces big financial challenges. Costs have risen, revenues haven't. The worry is that revenues won't be rising any time soon. Indeed, some TV rights deals are going backwards. It's understood that the IRFU spent around €6 million on the men's sevens programme in the last Olympic cycle leading to the 2024 Games. That's a gross spend figure and there has been money coming in each year – €350,000 from World Rugby, €300,000 from Sport Ireland, as well as sponsorship from TritonLake and Blackrock Expert Services – but the men's sevens programme was loss-making. Ireland after qualifying for the Olympics. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO That is true of most programmes in Irish rugby. The men's national 15s team is pretty much the only side making money for the IRFU. 80% of the union's revenue still comes from that source. Andy Farrell's Ireland team is the lifeblood of the sport on these shores, so their success is the absolute priority. As the IRFU cuts budgets in several places – it's believed the men's U20 programme has had to tighten its belt, for example – the men's sevens team is the one that has been dealt a fatal blow. It's understood that the IRFU will save more than €500,000 per season by taking this measure. It might not seem like a transformative amount in the grand scheme of things, but the union has taken a long-term view that this can be better used elsewhere. Humphreys has been the perceived villain here because the programme has been axed less than a year after he took over from staunch sevens advocate Nucifora, who was the key driver in relaunching the programme and running it for the past decade. Nucifora is now working with Scottish Rugby, who we know are also cutting back in sevens. Humphreys played sevens for Ireland at the 1997 World Cup and spoke positively about the code when he was in the process of taking over from Nucifora. But it seems that reality has bitten. It appears that the IRFU had no long-term plan for sevens beyond last year. The men's programme has been running since 2015 but it seems there was no thought for life after the 2024 Olympics, which was always likely to be a point of transition. That there was no strategy beyond that point is damning. Advertisement Plotting for long-term success in sevens could have included implementing some sort of sevens pathway underneath the national teams, but that wasn't the case. The IRFU can blame World Rugby for dragging out confirmation of its future plans for sevens, but other nations simply got on with it after the Olympics and maintained their high standards. The Irish men were sent out on the SVNS Series with squads that lacked experience and sometimes even included injured players. Those involved in this 2024/25 campaign did their utmost to represent Ireland with pride, but felt a lack of support from their union. Even now, members of the set-up believe this decision to shut the programme down wouldn't hurt as much if there had been more care shown this season and over the past week. It rankled that the public confirmation came suddenly on Wednesday evening last week. Humphreys called the players before the news was confirmed, but it all happened very quickly and the final statement was viewed as cold. Anyone losing their job would want to be informed face-to-face. The calls from ex-Ireland players to reverse the decision have fallen on deaf ears, while a group of parents of those ex-players and some current players haven't heard back from the IRFU after they expressed their frustrations in a letter addressed to Humphreys. Those parties want the IRFU to publish the two reviews that led to the men's programme being axed, but that is unlikely. One was carried out by World Rugby to look at the SVNS Series, so it isn't the IRFU's to share. The other was done by Portas, a sports management consultancy, for the IRFU to assess the financial state of the rugby. It is said to include confidential details that relate to other nations, not just Ireland. Jordan Conroy has been lethal for Ireland 7s. Travis Hayto / INPHO Travis Hayto / INPHO / INPHO The one review that it seems Ireland players and staff were involved in was the post-Olympics review into their performances in Paris. The most genuine hope those demanding a u-turn had was that Sport Ireland and the Olympic Federation of Ireland [OFI] would protest, given that an Irish medal contender has now been removed from the Olympics mix, but that hasn't quite been the case. It seems that both of those bodies could see this coming. Sport Ireland said the decision was 'disappointing but not surprising as there is a wider global context in terms of the sevens game,' while the OFI has also expressed its disappointment following a board meeting to discuss the issue on Wednesday. 'The removal of a high performance programme from the Irish Olympic team that has received significant tax payers investment through Sport Ireland and enjoyed good success is something that the OFI is disappointed in,' said an OFI spokesperson. The OFI added that it is determined that the Irish women's sevens team will continue to strive for Olympic qualification and to chase medals for Ireland. As they shed the men's sevens programme, the IRFU's key focuses now under Humphreys appear to be ensuring the Ireland 15s men's team remain strong, helping Connacht, Munster, and Ulster to close the gap to Leinster, as well as international women's 15s rugby. The drop-off in 'the other three' provinces has caused alarm. The concern is that Munster, Ulster, and Connacht aren't competing for trophies, but also that their pathways aren't delivering enough high-quality players into the Ireland squad. This is the thing that will cause most sleepless nights for Humphreys. It's why there will be another change to the national player contracting model, meaning the provinces must contribute 40% of 'central contracts' from their provincial salary budget from next year. This will mainly come from Leinster, who have the bulk of nationally-contracted players, and the money will be redirected into the Munster, Connacht, and Ulster player development pathways. The IRFU believes that stronger funding towards coaching and support for teenage players in schools and clubs across Ulster, Connacht, and Munster will have a long-term pay-off. It might take five or 10 years to truly be felt. So even if the savings each season from dropping the men's sevens programme won't be vast, the IRFU thinks the additional money will be better spent on that project, and on women's rugby. 'What we're trying to do is identify things we don't need to do anymore to free up resources to do the things we really want,' said Kevin Potts in an interview with the Sunday Independent last weekend. 'For example, to accelerate our women's game and to ensure that our national men's team is competing at the very highest level.' The IRFU's annual spend on women's rugby has risen drastically in recent years. IRFU performance director David Humphreys. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO It stood at €3.1 million per season in 2021. Four years on, it's around €9 million per season. 2021 was when the IRFU came under intense scrutiny after a large group of women's players wrote to the Irish government to highlight 'multiple cycles of substandard commitment from the union.' The IRFU's spend on women's rugby has tripled in the four years since, and the union has a goal of having four full-time contracted provincial teams by 2028, which will require further investment. It's understood the women's game is currently bringing in just over €2 million per season and 'is not going to be profitable any time soon,' according to IRFU chief financial officer Thelma O'Driscoll, speaking last November. The women's sevens programme has survived and the IRFU insists that's a long-term decision because there are fewer development pathways in women's rugby. However, the increased focus on the 15s team in this World Cup year means the women's sevens team also endured a miserable season as key players went on 15s duty. The Ireland women's sevens were relegated from the SVNS Series, so will have to start again down a couple of levels. That, in turn, means players in the sevens team won't be exposed to as high a standard of competition as before. But as they said last week, the IRFU doesn't believe the men's sevens programme is a genuine pathway for professional 15s players. There have been success stories, of course, but the union seemingly feels that many of those who excelled at sevens, such as Hugo Keenan, had already shown their potential in 15s and could have kicked on anyway. There seems to be a sense that there isn't a strong correlation between the sevens and 15s games, and that only outside backs from 15s can truly shine in the seven-player code, not forwards. It's understood that the provinces have not been supportive of the sevens programme over the past decade. They would rather retain their academy players in order to cover injuries and give them chances in professional 15s when the time is right. The way the IRFU sees it, there have been very few players picked up by the Ireland sevens programme having been off their 15s radar, and then ended up progressing into the 15s game. Cormac Izuchukwu is the prime example, having come into the Irish system from the wilderness of Scottish club rugby, into the Ireland sevens and onto Ulster and his Ireland 15s cap. Even at that, Izuchukwu wasn't with the sevens for long. Zac Ward had played underage rugby for Ulster and then featured for Ulster A after returning home from Hartpury College, but almost certainly wouldn't now have a three-year deal in Ulster if it wasn't for his stunning impact at the Olympics last year. Still, Humphreys and co evidently feel that a couple of positive examples from 10 years of the programme aren't cause for investing further into this next four-year cycle before the 2028 Olympics. It is jarring that the IRFU seem to have shut down all possibility of the men's sevens team being brought back together to make a late run at the 2028 Games in LA. Ireland could restart in 2027 and qualify for the Olympics through Rugby Europe competitions. This is something that the current players asked Humphreys about at their meeting. The Ireland women's team were relegated from the SVNS Series this season. Travis Hayto / INPHO Travis Hayto / INPHO / INPHO And this is the unique thing about this case. The Olympics opened its doors to rugby. The sevens in Paris last year was wonderful. The Irish men weren't far off medalling. It seems a shame to give up on the prospect of doing so in the future. As things stand, LA 2028 is not on the table because the IRFU don't want to give false hope to the players who now have to move on, whether in rugby or outside it. The IRFU believes that other unions will follow suit and either axe their sevens programmes or notably curtail investment into the seven-player code, as Great Britain have now done. World Rugby hopes that a slimmed-down SVNS Series can stem the alarming financial situation, with the governing body having reportedly made annual losses of €25 million since centralising the series in 2023. But the mood around sevens is one of doom and gloom. Some people are of the view that the seven-player code should break away from World Rugby and its unions now that it's part of the Olympics. Nucifora is among them. For that to work, or for World Rugby's series to be saved, sevens needs people to support it on TV and in person in a way that simply hasn't been happening in recent years. Having amazing peaks every four years at the Olympics won't be enough. Bringing the sevens show on the road around the world is very costly, so a breakaway rugby sevens revolution would need generous backers. Something needs to change soon because the road sevens is on at the moment appears to have an unhappy ending.
Irish Daily Mirror
23-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Daily Mirror
Sevens players victims of potential IRFU money worries says Brian O'Driscoll
Brian O'Driscoll has speculated that the IRFU has cut the Men's Sevens squad because of potential financial issues "down the line". The Leinster and Ireland great says that he has "total sympathy" for the plight of the players who were informed last week that the programme has been shut down. They were subsequently told that they will be paid until the end of the year but the IRFU has been criticised by current and former Sevens stars and their families for this action. "Almost immediately they got onto the HSBC series and they have had an awful lot of success," O'Driscoll told Off The Ball. "OK, they didn't manage to win one of the events but they've been in finals, they've been third in the World Cup a few years ago in Cape Town, they've been incredibly consistent. "So I have total sympathy for their situation, how all of these players now all of a sudden look as though they're going to be out of a gig." Former IRFU performance director David Nucifora, who founded the Sevens programme, has described the decision as "total nonsense". O'Driscoll, however, adds that there's two sides to every story and he insists that Irish rugby chiefs - including Nucifora's successor, David Humphreys -must have a good reason for their decision. "I would imagine that the powers that be within the IRFU haven't taken this decision lightly," said O'Driscoll. "My sense is that there's potential trouble looming down the line from a financial point of view and all this comes down to is securing financial stability over the course of the next five to 10 years. "It's been very well documented about Wales, I think Scotland are not far away from being in a similar predicament or are certainly on the road there. "Even a union like Ireland, who everyone thought was bulletproof, when you see an €18 and a half million loss last year, the implications of a World Cup year when you don't host those November Test matches having such a significant impact on the balance sheet, there's something not right. "We're seeing clubs in the UK folding, we know that three of the four provinces are really struggling from a funding point of view, commercially not successful at the moment, they just haven't really recovered post-Covid. "So I think the decision is a financial one and I feel for David Humphreys where he has come into the role and now he's barely got his feet under the desk and he has to deliver this sort of news. "And it's not just because I know Humphs and know what sort of a guy he is. This is a bigger picture piece and it doesn't mean that everyone shouldn't feel worthy of feeling hard done by. "The Union, the players, the public, because it's not a good news story or news day for anyone. I think many of us thought Sevens was going to be the route into the global market, it became an Olympic sport, an opportunity to achieve a medal of some sort - it's such a carrot to these players. "But ultimately Sevens in Ireland is about being a feeder into 15, which runs the game and is the financial payer and the capital appreciator of rugby and you can't get away from that. "I'd be interested to ask all the players who play Sevens, I bet you all of them would say Sevens isn't the final marker or where they want to reach. I bet you all of them see it as a segue into the 15s game. "So it's very disappointing from their perspective because of the unbelievable work that they have put in, almost over-achieving based on the quality of global teams, but it's got to be a bigger picture piece around what is coming down the line. You can't get away from that and it's just trying to future proof the security of rugby in general in Ireland."
Irish Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Matt Williams: The IRFU gets almost all the big calls right, but axeing the men's Sevens programme is shameful
For many years, politics within the IRFU kept Ireland from participating in the global Sevens programme. In 2009, the excitement surrounding Sevens reached fever pitch when the game was accepted into the Olympics . Yet Ireland remained steadfast in refusing to participate until 2014. During that period, the IRFU's stance astounded me and many others in Irish rugby. [ IRFU to axe men's sevens programme following review ] I became part of a loose coalition of former players, coaches and administrators who publicly and privately agitated for Ireland to enter both men's and women's squads into the World Sevens. The IRFU's public stance against joining the World Sevens circuit was because of financial restraints. Sound familiar? READ MORE However, we were informed via back channels that the real reason was highly political, as theoretically an Ireland Sevens player from Northern Ireland could declare for the Great British team before the Olympics. At the Olympic Games, the IRFU is not the governing body, it is the Olympic Federation of Ireland . The astounding strength of Irish rugby's alliance between North and South that has stood firm against the most arduous of political tests rightly remains sacrosanct within the IRFU. The feedback that reached our group's frustrated ears was that Ireland was refusing to join the World Sevens because the IRFU was being ultra-cautious to avoid even the slightest possibility of ever having to face the problem of a player leaving an Irish team to join a Great British Olympic team. Many plausible solutions were put to the IRFU on their hypothetical problem. The most simple of the proposals was the creation of a watertight contract for Sevens players to declare for Ireland before playing a game. Multiple unofficial communications were held over tea, coffee or pints with supportive members of the special committee who were tasked with looking at the possibility of Ireland joining the World Sevens circuit. Still, for several years, the IRFU rejected all proposals. As a result, it was not until 2019 that Ireland's men's team finally qualified for the World Sevens programme. Ireland celebrate winning gold in the men's rugby Sevens final at the 2023 European Games and qualifying for the Paris Olympics. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/INPHO In all my many experiences with the IRFU administrators, they have got the vast majority of their big decisions absolutely right. We only have to look across the water at the financial shambles and the high-performance train crashes that are happening at various levels of the game in England, Scotland and Wales to see that the path the IRFU administrators have trodden has Irish rugby financially secure and performing on the field far above almost every other union on the planet. However, on the matter of the Irish men's Sevens programme, the long years of delay before the IRFU finally gave it the green light denied generations the opportunity to compete on the global and Olympic stage. That long delay remains a deeply flawed decision by the IRFU. There is a sentence that every union on the planet has in their constitution that states one of their core responsibilities is 'to grow and foster the game of rugby'. It does not say to grow and foster only the 15s version of the game. Sevens is a unique and integral part of rugby's history. Like all sports, rugby is in a state of constant change, and Sevens has evolved at an astonishing speed. It is now a unique hybrid game that stands almost totally divorced from the men's 15-a-side game. Public statements from the IRFU that the men's World Sevens and Olympic programmes can only be viewed as a vehicle to produce players for the 15s game is out of touch with reality. Sevens Rugby is a singularly elite sport. It is not a step along the path of a player's developmental process to play 15s. The IRFU are wrong to compare international sevens with provincial academies. The crucial aspect in Sevens evolution is that it has opened up rugby to a different calibre of athlete who has natural rugby skills and buckets of aerobic and anaerobic fitness. While Sevens players are exceptionally athletic, you don't have to be a bulging genetic mammoth performing as a battering ram in a mindless 7-1 bench to play Sevens rugby. Jordan Conroy scores Ireland's second try against New Zealand in the men's rugby Sevens at last year's Paris Olympics. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/INPHO Those who watched the Paris Olympics Sevens tournament were captivated by the exceptional skill, athleticism and courage that was on display. This was not a developmental tournament for 15s. It was elite sporting entertainment in which Ireland's men's and women's teams were wonderful contributors. The decision to abandon the men's Irish Sevens programme has broken the hearts and shattered the dreams of generations of players. As children, we started to play the game because we hoped that one day we could be like our heroes. I wonder how many little boys and girls watched the Olympic Sevens tournament in Paris and said to themselves: 'One day I am going to do that.' One of the IRFU's most sacred responsibilities is to ensure there will always be the opportunity for the dreams of our young rugby boys and girls to come true. That our young men can no longer dream of playing for Ireland at an Olympic Games because the IRFU says they cannot afford men's Sevens borders on the shameful. While budgets are real, savings should have been made in other areas to ensure that Ireland's men will continue to represent the nation at world sport's greatest event, the Olympic Games. Meanwhile, rugby minnows such as Kenya, Uruguay and Spain must be selling raffle tickets to raise money, because they are capable of sending their men's teams on the Sevens circuit. This makes the IRFU decision appear even more farcical. It has taken over a decade for Irish rugby to develop the pathways and infrastructure that now empowers our superb men's and women's Sevens athletes to compete on equal terms with the world's best. For the IRFU to abandon that generation of work, which has created the men's Sevens programme, is to walk away from a huge part of rugby's future. This decision is rightly being seen by many in the rugby community as a dereliction of duty by their governing body. History is a ruthless editor and the IRFU's chapter on men's Sevens makes for some ugly reading.
