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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Katie McCabe named Sportswoman of the Month for May
The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman Award for May: Katie McCabe (Soccer) It's a whole seven and half years since Katie McCabe won her first Irish Times/Sport Ireland monthly award, which came at the end of an eventful year on and off the pitch for both her and her Republic of Ireland team-mates. In April 2017, there was the very public stance the players took against the FAI, McCabe among those who turned up at Liberty Hall to air their grievances. In August, she was named the youngest ever captain of the national team, with Colin Bell choosing the then 21-year-old to succeed the retired Emma Byrne. Between September and November of that year, she captained the side to an impressive start to their World Cup qualifying campaign, with wins away to Northern Ireland and Slovakia followed by a scoreless draw away to then reigning European champions the Netherlands. READ MORE But perhaps the most significant happening for McCabe in 2017 was her six month loan spell at Glasgow City , her playing opportunities since joining Arsenal two years before having been severely limited. While in Scotland, she helped City win their 11th successive league title and then returned to Arsenal with just a fortnight left on her contract with the London club. By then, Joe Montemurro, who was appointed head coach of the Australian women's side last week, had taken over as Arsenal manager. He liked what he saw from the young Dubliner in training, extended her contract and, well, the rest is one heck of a story. When she headed to Lisbon last month with Arsenal to take on Barcelona, a Champions League medal was just about the only honour missing from McCabe's club collection. Only three other Irish women – Emma Byrne, Ciara Grant and Yvonne Tracy – had won Europe's premier club competition, but that was a whole 18 years before when they were part of Arsenal's quadruple-winning side. No English club had won it before or since, and coming up against one of the finest teams in the history of the women's game, the odds weren't exactly on Arsenal's side. Katie McCabe winning the ball from Barcelona's Caroline Graham Hansen in last month's Champions League final. Photograph:Barcelona had scored 26 goals in their six group games – 10 against Wolfsburg over two legs in the quarter-finals – and beat Chelsea, the six-in-a-row WSL winners, 8-2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. And, somehow, Arsenal managed to keep them scoreless in Lisbon – McCabe giving their brilliant winger Caroline Graham Hansen no room to breathe, her marking job playing a sizeable part in that clean sheet. Add in a 74th minute goal from Stina Blackstenius and Arsenal were, once again, European champions. And McCabe had added her name to that Irish roll of honour, having also shone against Bayern Munich and Lyons in the quarter and semi-finals. Little wonder that Republic of Ireland manager Carla Ward has excused her captain from the trip to the United States later this month for the friendlies in Denver and Cincinnati, having suggested that she is 'on the verge of burnout'. As Uefa's stattos revealed, McCabe started all 15 of Arsenal's Champions League games, including in the qualifying phase, meaning she played more minutes – 1,296 to be exact – than any player in the history of the competition. Add in her appearing in all but two of Arsenal's WSL games, suspension ruling her out of both, as well as four cup games. Good and all as her engine is, it was time for a break. Form-wise, she hasn't had her best year for Ireland, so Ward needs the only Irish woman to ever be nominated for the Ballon d'Or, and our 2023 sportswoman of the year , to be in prime condition for October's Nations League play-off against Belgium. [ Aoife Wafer named Sportswoman of the Month for April Opens in new window ] Back in 2017, McCabe followed Katie Taylor on our monthly roll of honour. It says something of her career achievements since then that she might well have drawn level since on the name recognition front. Previous monthly winners – December: Ellen Walshe (swimming); January : Hazel Finn (basketball); February : Lara Gillespie (cycling); March : Kate O'Connor and Sarah Healy (athletics); April : Aoife Wafer (rugby)
Irish Times
10-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Aoife Wafer named Sportswoman of the Month for April
The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman Award for April: Aoife Wafer (Rug b y) There's probably no handier way these days of measuring a player's contribution to their team in any given campaign than by totting up their Fantasy points. So, how did Aoife Wafer fare in the official 2025 Six Nations version of said challenge? A single player, France 's Teani Feleu, outscored her – and she played one game more. [ Ireland's Aoife Wafer: 'Ultimately, I want to be the best in the world' ] 'If not for the knee injury sustained in round four that ruled her out of round five, Aoife Wafer may well have topped the fantasy leader board,' the Fantasy Rugby Six Nations site's summary of the tournament stated. 'In all four appearances, she was unstoppable – posting the highest fantasy score in both round one and round four. She carried for 423 metres (the most by any forward), beat 17 defenders and scored four tries. READ MORE 'Off the back of an outstanding 2024 Championship, Wafer has now cemented herself as a world-class prospect and will likely be the first name on many fantasy team-sheets for 2026.' In other words, she had yet another rather useful campaign. At the end of it, the 22-year-old Wexford native was named in the team of the tournament, alongside Irish comrades Neve Jones and Aoife Dalton. For the second year running, she was among the four nominees for the Six Nations Player of the Year award. Still, some of her Fantasy managers weren't happy. 'When I was ruled out of the Scotland game, I got a few messages from people I've never met. It was like, 'Why are you injured – what am I going to do with my team?' And I was like, 'I don't know',' she said. Following the Leinster Rugby U16 Girls Plate final between PortDara and Wicklow on May 3, Aoife Wafer presents the trophy to Emily Jane Miller of PortDara at Energia Park, Dublin. Photo by Tyler Miller/Sportsfile 'But it's cool. I was up at Donnybrook recently for the Leinster youth finals and this man and his son came up to me and asked for a photo. We stayed chatting for a bit, they were talking about playing Fantasy Rugby and how they had to replace me for the Scotland game. 'It just kind of dawned on me how brilliant this is for women's rugby. The boy's school did a fantasy league for the men's Six Nations and he came second, so he was like, 'Right, I'm going to win it with the women's one'. 'At the start he was saying they hadn't a clue who anyone was, who the good players were, who'd score loads of points. But by the end they were rattling off the names and they knew exactly who everyone was. And he won. It's such a good way for fans to learn about the women's game. It's fantastic.' The problem now for Fantasy devotees of Wafer is that her price is going through the roof. 'My older brother plays it and he was slagging me, he said cost-wise I went from below 10 last year to over 22 this time.' She's becoming unaffordable. And she's become indispensable for Ireland, that knee-ligament injury, sustained in the Six Nations game against Wales, a desperate worry in the build-up to this summer's World Cup , not least after the loss of Erin King and Dorothy Wall, also through injury. Wafer has encouraging news, though. 'It's not too bad now. I'm in a brace, but that's just precautionary and all that craic. I'm in really good hands with the IRFU . The medical team there are class. They're looking after me well. Hopefully I'll be involved in some of the training in our first World Cup camp next month and I'll just build it back up naturally.' While it was an outstanding Six Nations campaign for Wafer on a personal level, it was a mixed one for the team as a whole: big wins over Italy and Wales, a missed opportunity against France, a storming first half against England followed by a second half to forget, then a disappointing end to it all with defeat by Scotland . Aoife Wafer on her way to scoring a try despite the efforts of Wales player Kate Williams in the Women's Six Nations round four game at Newport in April. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/INPHO 'That's how it was all right, highs and lows. We have plenty of positives to take from it, especially putting on high scores away to Italy and Wales, but it was disappointing that we finished on not so high of a note against Scotland. The French game was the one that got away, and after that phenomenal first half against England it's a pity we couldn't keep it going for longer,' she said. 'Probably the main thing we'll take from it is the need to be more ruthless, more clinical when we have our chances, just really putting our foot on the opposition's throats. And being patient – it doesn't matter how many phases it takes as long as we hold on to the ball, eventually a defence will crack and we'll get through. 'Against France, it was more about us losing rather than them winning, if that makes the sense – they took their chances, we didn't. But that's what Tier One nations do.' Ireland will hope to put those lessons to good use at this summer's World Cup where they have been drawn in a pool with Japan, Spain and New Zealand, who they play in that order. 'I have countdowns on my phone and they nearly all revolve around the World Cup. It's something I'm constantly thinking about. I'm buzzing about it. For a lot of us, it'll be our first World Cup, so we can't wait to get going,' she said. 'It's a busy spell for all of us, coming off the back of the Six Nations and going in to the build-up for the World Cup. But I love it. I've nearly been banned from the HPC [High Performance Centre]; I nearly live there. I just love training and being in that kind of environment. When I get a break, I'm just itching to get back to be honest. 'I'm happy with what I've produced for Ireland so far, but I'm my own worst critic. I set goals quite high and I expect a lot from myself because I want to be the best in the world and the best version of me for the team. Still, I reckon there's a lot more in me.' Fantasy price? Soaring. Previous monthly winners – December: Ellen Walshe (swimming); January : Hazel Finn (basketball); February : Lara Gillespie (cycling); March : Kate O'Connor and Sarah Healy (athletics).
