Latest news with #IrelandSevens
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Monaghan and Parsons in Ireland RWC training squad
Ireland's Sam Monaghan and Beibhinn Parsons have both been included in a 37-player training squad for the Women's Rugby World Cup in England. Scott Bemand's side begin their tournament against Japan on 24 August with New Zealand and Spain also in their pool. Co-captain Monaghan has not played international rugby since the 2024 Six Nations with the 31-year-old lock missing this season's championship and last year's WXV1 campaign through a knee injury sustained playing for her club Gloucester-Hartpury. Olympian Parsons has also been absent through injury after she suffered two leg breaks in the space of four months, the second coming when representing Ireland Sevens in December. With 26 Tests to her name, only Enya Breen has more caps than Parsons among the backs in Bemand's panel. Forwards Sarah Delaney, Eimear Corri and Shannon Ikahihifo are all included after missing out on the Six Nations where Ireland finished third with two wins and three defeats. Alma Atagamen and Ivana Kiripati are the only two uncapped players in the panel. Influential forwards Erin King and Dorothy Wall have already been ruled out of the tournament through injuries sustained in the Six Nations. Ireland's final squad for the competition will be reduced to 32 players with the side playing warm-up games against Scotland in Cork on 2 August and Canada in Belfast seven days later. The side did not qualify for the 2021 World Cup after finishing eighth on home soil four years prior. Forwards: Alma Atagamen, Aoife Wafer, Brittany Hogan, Christy Haney, Cliodhna Moloney, Deirbhile Nic a Bhaird, Edel McMahon, Fiona Tuite, Grace Moore, Ivana Kiripati, Jane Clohessy, Linda Djougang, Neve Jones, Niamh O'Dowd, Ruth Campbell, Sadhbh McGrath, Sam Monaghan, Sarah Delaney, Shannon Ikahihifo, Siobhan McCarthy. Backs: Amee-Leigh Costigan, Anna McGann, Aoibheann Reilly, Aoife Corey, Aoife Dalton, Beibhinn Parsons, Dannah O'Brien, Emily Lane, Enya Breen, Eve Higgins, Katie Corrigan, Molly Scuffil-McCabe, Nicole Fowley, Stacey Flood, Vicky Elmes Kinlan.
Irish Daily Mirror
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Daily Mirror
Men's Sevens axed: Connacht are next, Women's XV's in firing line too
So the Ireland Men's Sevens programme had to go, the IRFU saving circa €2.5m and not brooking any debate in the process - load, aim, fire, Women's international side and Connacht should be very, very relieved they dodged this bullet. It was going to be one of those three."Absolutely shocking from the IRFU," posted former Ireland Sevens player of the Year Terry Kennedy who represented Ireland at 40 different tournaments 2016-24, on Instagram. A view the legendary Brian O'Driscoll endorsed on X/twitter: "Incredibly disappointing to see the @IrishRugby mens 7's being discontinued. Have loved watching them on the @SVNSSeries over the past decade or so - more than holding their own against the best of the world's 7's teams. Understandably I'm sure there's a lot of anger & frustration within their camp."Kennedy was for going a bit further, blaming the cost of importing foreign players to play provincial rugby and overspending at committee level on food/travel to games. Continued Paris 2024 Olympian: "The way they've handled the whole situation is nothing short of a disgrace. Humphreys and Potts not even having the integrity to announce this properly, instead getting a media person to put up a post, and only because their hand was forced as there was an article about to be published separately."So disappointed for the current group of players as well as younger players coming through that they won't be afforded the same opportunities and experiences that myself and the lads have, because of the shortsightedness of a couple of old guys running the game here."The financial/cost-cutting excuse is complete smoke and mirrors, masquerading the fact that every RWC year Unions run at a major loss due to the lack of November international match revenue. "Between funding from World Rugby for being on the World Series, Sport Ireland funding from Olympic success and sponsorship funding, no other programme outside the Men's 15s brings in anywhere near the revenue."No mention of the millions paid to bring foreign players over on short-term contracts and the budget to pay for committee members travelling to 6N games and tours with lunches and dinners - far more than the whole 7s budget."The disrespect that the IRFU have shown to Sport Ireland and the Irish Olympic Committee after all their years of funding, utterly disgraceful." Strong stuff dinners and trips aside as unquantifiable, we do know there are 12 Non-Irish Eligible (NIE) players being paid a salary across the four comprise RG Snyman, Rabah Slimani, Jordie Barrett (a six-month 'short term' contract) at Leinster, Jean Kleyn, Thakir Abrahams, Alex Nankivell at Munster, Sean Reffell, Werner Kok, Aidan Morgan at Ulster, Santiago Cordero, Josh Ioane and John Porch (released mid-Feb to play Top 14 in France) at Connacht had a further five foreign players Piers O'Connor, Shamus Hurley-Langton, Bryan Ralston, Sean Jensen and Shayne Bolton who, by birth, are Irish eligible - indeed Jensen and Bolton played for Ireland 'A' last four provinces are intensely secretive about specific players wages with Leinster's three believed to have little change out of €1m, Munster's three costing circa €700k, Ulster's €700k and Connacht's three a few euros past € according to the IRFU, their men and women's Sevens programme cost €4.2m in 2023/24. Sport Ireland, who are responsible for aiding Olympic sports, can be relied upon for around €500/600k per annum. The Mens sponsorship deals with Tritonlake and Blackrock PM brings in a further € David Humphreys, current IRFU Performance Director, and the man tasked with making cutbacks following IRFU CEO Kevin Potts announcing the Union had made an €18.4m loss in 2023/ figure is real money but, as Kennedy rightly points out, it was an unusual year as a Rugby World Cup year. The IRFU don't make any money from the World Rugby-owned competition. World Rugby redistributes the profits to their 113 member of the World Cup though, the IRFU missed out on the Aviva-staged November Series games. International games are the IRFU main revenue driver with the Six Nations also coming with generous prize-money, a €6m bonus for a Grand Slam for instance. Tacitly, the loss of the three 2023 November series matches cost the IRFU circa €15m and the buck stopped with Humphreys, ordered to kill off something that was weren't many choices and, indeed, Humphreys first took a bite out of the provinces announcing last month he was raising their contribution to Central Contacts by from 30 to 40 percent from next season. This will cost Leinster €330k/Munster €500k. Of the target that could have been chosen, it is the international womens XVs programme that is losing the most money - and this is a Rugby World Cup Year for them. It was decided to pass on is a preferred target but resistance out west has stymied their being scrapped before, granting them a longer lease of life. Make no mistake, this will be back on the table in the near future, the westerners have no friends at the IRFU's big left Sevens sticking out like a sore thumb, the Mens section particularly as it is not a reliable feeder to the provinces or international XVs game - the one that makes the money. The Women's Sevens section, by contrast, backbones the XVs this completely, by the way, may come with potential Trumpian bluff benefits... If the IRFU ceases funding the Olympics sport, how much would Sport Ireland be prepared to pay to keep a discipline where Ireland are medal contenders on their roster? Maybe more than the current money they are chipping in and, after all, the IRFU could help them out, send them a few players when they are thinking of fielding a team in a competition. Hugo Keenan loves playing Sevens for fallout, and as placed squarely in the frame by Kennedy, about the financing of foreign imports' contracts continues and with Leinster attracting a lot of Cullen was, as it turned out, the visible face of Irish rugby yesterday and his Friday pre-match press conference for a game with Glasgow at the Aviva that had little or no relevance to the play-offs was always going to be a shooting gallery. And from which it is clear Leinster are frustrated with the narrative that it is all their fault. That somehow Snyman, Slimani and Barrett have been painted as modern day pirates, eye-patches, peg-legs and hooks, all cutlassas and swagbags at the ready."Every team (men's province) is self-funded here in Ireland, that is it important to understand," said an exasperated Cullen. "Sport is a business at a professional level and we want to get bums on seats. 'In terms of the foreign players that are in our 23 matchday squad this week, we want to make it exciting for fans."Because when you have moved from a few hundred people back in the day in Donnybrook to the RDS which is now being redeveloped and then, this year, to the Aviva, you need to get bums on seats. "We are running a business here. It's a self-funding business. There's 70 odd staff on the ground as well, getting rugby balls into young kids' hands. That's been funded by the professional team. "It's not like every €100 generated by the professional game goes back into the professional team. It might come back in time but it's what we call a virtuous circle. "It's not like we're looking for money from outside. We are self-funding."It's not like if Sevens have a surplus and we're looking for their money. That's not how it works. So that's what we're in control of." Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email.
BBC News
20-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Costigan to captain Ireland against France in opener
Amee-Leigh Costigan will captain Ireland in their Women's Six Nations opener against France at the Kingspan previously captained Ireland Sevens but will lead Ireland for the first time in a Test match in Belfast with regular captain Edel McMahon on the row Ruth Campbell and openside flanker Erin King will make their Six Nations debuts for Scott Bemand's side in a game that will be live on BBC Northern Ireland as well as iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and Ireland team shows four changes to the side that beat USA in the WXV Series in their last game in October as Campbell, Anna McGann, Eve Higgins and Dannah O'Brien are handed Flood and McGann join Costigan in the back three with McGann coming in for the retired Eimear Considin at right Higgins and Aoife Dalton are selected as the midfield pairing whilst Emily Lane makes her first championship appearance since 2021 at scrum-half as O'Brien comes in for Nicole Fowley at O'Dowd, Neve Jones, who has been selected as vice-captain, and Linda Djougang make up the front row, with Campbell preferred to Fiona Tuite at lock alongside Dorothy Hogan, King and Aoife Wafer complete Ireland's back has opted for a 6:2 split on the bench and can call upon the likes of Cliodhna Moloney, Siobhan McCarthy, Christy Haney, Grace Moore, Tuite and McMahon as forward reinforcements, with Aoibheann Reilly and Enya Breen the backline were beaten 38-17 by France in last year's Six Nations as they finished third in the team: Flood, McGann, Dalton, Higgins, Costigan (capt); O'Brien, Lane; O'Dowd, Jones, Djougang, Campbell, Wall, Hogan, King, Moloney, McCarthy, Haney, Moore, Tuite, McMahon, Reilly, Breen.
