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The 42
a day ago
- Business
- The 42
Here are the jerseys Ireland will wear at the Women's Rugby World Cup
THE IRELAND JERSEYS for the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup have been unveiled. Canterbury of New Zealand launched the kit, in partnership with the IRFU and Elverys, today ahead of it going on sale this Friday, 25 July. Prices start from €80/£66. Advertisement Ireland will debut the new home jersey in their World Cup opener against Japan on Sunday, 24 August at at Franklin's Gardens, Northampton. Scott Bemand's side also face Spain and New Zealand in Pool A. They return to the showpiece tournament for the first time since hosting in 2017, having missed out on qualification for 2021, and they do so after an impressive upturn: from a strong showing at last year's WXV1, including a famous win over the Black Ferns, to striking Six Nations progress. 'At Canterbury, we are incredibly proud to launch the official kit for the Irish Women's Team,' said Simon Rowe, SVP of Canterbury of New Zealand. 'This summer feels like a very important time for Irish women's rugby, with the team looking to build upon a set of fantastic results last year. Under the banner of 'Ireland's Calling,' we are inviting fans everywhere to rally behind these exceptional players as they take to the world's stage.' 'This Rugby World Cup campaign represents a defining moment for women's rugby in Ireland, and we're proud to mark it with the launch of such a meaningful jersey and campaign,' IRFU Head of Commercial Jessica Long added. ''Ireland's Calling' is more than a campaign line — it's a rallying cry to fans across the country to get behind this team as they inspire a new generation on and off the pitch.' The kit was launched at a special event at Lansdowne FC, Dublin, today, where Canterbury also unveiled a 12-metre tall jersey which will tour Ireland from 24 July to 10 August. Fans can sign it with messages of support at rugby clubs and Elverys stores across the country, before it's presented to the squad ahead of departure for England. Ireland face Scotland and Canada in send-off games in Cork and Belfast on Saturday, 2 and 9 August.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
World Cup has come 'sooner than I thought'
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand believes his side are further along in their journey than he anticipated they would be at this stage of his is preparing his side up for the Rugby World Cup in England next month, with Ireland drawn against Japan, Spain and New Zealand in Pool pleased with their success, which includes qualifying for the tournament, beating New Zealand in the WXV1 and finishing third in the Women's Six Nations, he has been surprised by their quick progress."Whatever happens in this World Cup, when I was sat in the interview for this job two years ago, I was talking about Australia World Cup in 2029," he told BBC Sport NI's Orla Bannon."I'm not surprised with the level of performance the girls have got to, but with where we have got to, it is a bit sooner than we thought, but we won't fight it."Bemand dismissed the notion that the World Cup is "a free hit" and is hoping his players can perform to their potential as they aim to reach the knockout stages."We have earned the right to be here and we're not under the radar now, we want to deliver on the world stage and if the time is now, it is now and there's an internal pressure to deliver on what we are capable of," he added."We have two warm-up games and by the time we get to the shores of England, we will be ready. We're concentrated on getting our best performance out there and if we do, the results will take care of themselves."We believe we have the capability to get to London [where the semi-finals are being held], so why not dream?"
The 42
5 days ago
- Sport
- The 42
'People say treat the World Cup like any other game, but I want it to feel different'
BEIBHINN PARSONS REMEMBERS patting the turf behind her, wondering when her hand would locate a leg she already knew was broken. It was a painfully familiar feeling. Just over four months earlier, Parsons had broken her leg at the Paris Olympics. She missed Ireland's remarkable WX1 campaign as a result and now, just two weeks into her comeback at the Cape Town Sevens last December, a tackle had triggered a crunch of bone and metal which told Parsons all she needed to know. The shock overrode the pain to the extent there was no scream, no shout for help. 'I just placed the ball back and play went on and on,' Parsons tells The 42. 'The physios didn't come on for ages and I sort of turned around and look at the bench and was like 'I really need some help here', because it wasn't about the pain, it was just, heartbroken, heart sunk, I can't believe I'm here again.' The two injuries essentially wiped a year out of Parsons' career. She wasn't on the pitch when Ireland stormed to a stunning defeat of the Black Ferns at WXV1 last year, a tournament where Scott Bemand's resurgent side would finish second in the table – clear of Canada, New Zealand, France and the US. She sat out the entire 2025 Six Nations. Ireland's meeting with Scotland in Cork on 2 August will be her first international at 15s level since the 2024 Six Nations. She returns to a group driven by a renewed sense of ambition. In a month's time Ireland open their 2025 Rugby World Cup pool campaign against Japan in Northampton, before games against Spain and New Zealand. Parsons has the talent to be one of the tournament's standout players. There's a reason she debuted at Test level at the age of just 16, becoming Ireland's youngest international in the process. Now 23, the Ballinasloe native is able to look back at that time and acknowledge the strangeness of it all, a young girl entering an elite, adult sporting environment. 'It was definitely daunting at times,' she admits. 'I was so young that I couldn't share a room with anyone, there was this child protection thing. I never had a roomie, so I had to be so on it with the schedule and where to be and stuff like that. So I think a lot of the time I was just sort of like, 'Oh my God, where am I meant to be? What am I doing?' All of it was so new to me. Advertisement Parsons debuted for Ireland at 16. Tommy Dickson / INPHO Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO 'It was a lot to take in all at once, but the team were great and I never really felt that young, no one really made me feel out of place. 'But I remember a lot of it was me cramming doing school work. Anna Caplice, she helped me with my German oral. I could drive at the time and gave one of the girls, Laura Feely lifts from Galway, but on the way up we'd be chatting here and there and it would come to a point and I'd be like, right, I have 40 minutes left in this journey, I'm going to pull into Applegreen and do some work for my Irish oral. A lot of it was me just trying to manage everything and get through school, and they helped me a lot with that. But I just kept thinking I'll probably be out by next week or I won't ever get selected, so it all sort of came as a shock.' GAA had been the most prominent sport for the Parsons – Beibhinn is a cousin of former Mayo footballer Tom Parsons – but rugby was the game that captured her imagination. Having first played at U11s, it was U13s before she was part of an all-girls team in Ballinasloe. 'I remember my first season of playing with the boys. Honestly I don't think I knew a single rule. I don't even think I knew I was playing rugby, but I just remember it being loads of fun and it was something different and it was much easier than Gaelic football I thought at the time, just get the ball and run! I enjoyed it a lot. 'When I was playing for Ballinasloe I never felt like there was any barriers, I never felt like I was any different to the boys team because the coaches and the staff and the volunteers and the parents were just so committed to us playing and winning, and that's the way I still see it down there.' As it happened, she was pretty good at getting the ball and running. Parsons played her way to trials with Connacht and was soon catching the eye of the international coaches. Describing her family as half GAA-mad and half not the slightest bit interested in sport, the rugby world was a new experience. That naivety sheltered Parsons and those closest to her from some of the hype which surrounded this rising talent. 'Not coming from a rugby household, they didn't know what (to expect)… Like this 'first cap' thing, that was a new phrase for us and it wasn't really bigged up at all. We didn't make it into this massive thing and a lot of it went over my head and in some ways I didn't take it all in, but I'm sort of happy for that as well because I think if I was to make my first cap tomorrow, I'd be so nervous and rattled and just make it into something that's absolutely massive, whereas it was like ripping off a band aid without even noticing it then.' She now has 26 Test caps to her name, alongside her achievements playing Sevens – which included a run to the quarter-finals in last year's Paris Olympics. Before it came to such a cruel end, Parsons loved the Olympic experience, the sheer size and scale of the event fuelling her desire to help Ireland put a mark on this World Cup. An event like that has the ability to bring out your best or bring out your worst and it's a decision to really embrace the occasion. 'That's one thing I thought I did in the Olympics, I just wanted to go for it. I really wanted to embrace the occasion and instead of going into my shell, come out of it. That's definitely the way I want to approach the World Cup. 'People say to treat it like any other game, but for me that doesn't work, I want to know that I'm at a World Cup and I want it to feel different and I'm not just playing a club team in some backyard, I'm playing for my country at a World Cup and I think you should embrace that, not shy away from it.' The good news for Ireland is that Parsons' recovery has gone according to plan. She praises the work of IRFU physio Eduard Mias, who oversaw her rehab plan, but admits to moments of frustration during the long process of building her leg back up, which included re-evaluating her running technique during the three months where the plyometric speed exercises which help build muscle power were off the table. The work felt worth it when she clocked her top speed of 9 m/s again. 'That was a big like monkey on my back. Then I could sort of be calm about it and be like, OK, at least I'm not defected.' Parsons faced two long rehab spells over the last 12 months. Bryan Keane / INPHO Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO Just like her early days in camp, Parsons balanced her training load with her education. Studying Communications in DCU, Parsons' teammates became subjects for her dissertation – Relational Dialectics Theory in Elite Female Sport. 'I had focus groups of the girls,' she explains. 'The theory is just balancing tensions, so say with media it might be the tension of wanting visibility but also the want of having privacy and how you balance that, or does that come up for you? So we just figured out what sort of tensions there are, is it you want to be really strong, but you also want to be really feminine? These sort of tensions that are rising and how you navigate that really.' Parsons knows what a good World Cup would mean for this Ireland team, who had the seismic setback of not qualifying for the 2021 tournament. Given the lows the women's game has experienced on this island over the years, she also know the potential effect it could have on the game in Ireland. 'Those two warm up games . . . it's been so long since I've been on a 15s pitch and those moments after when you're with kids and they've travelled to Cork or Belfast, they're the Holy Grail. You just want to give people as much time as you can in those moments because you never know what it is that'll spark it off for them that they're like, I want to go for this and be serious about it. 'I had a coach once, Aiden McNulty [former Ireland Women's Sevens head coach]. We were going to a Sevens World Cup and he gave this presentation on how World Cups have the potential to change lives, and that's something I keep thinking of. I know it was for a Sevens World Cup, but he talked about him watching soccer World Cups growing up and wanting that… A World Cup does have the power to ignite something within someone and it's definitely something I'm cognisant of.'
Irish Examiner
02-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Head of strategy Lynne Cantwell says World Cup 'massive' to maximise potential growth of women's game
Six months into her role as the IRFU's Head of Women's Strategy, Lynne Cantwell understands the complexities facing her to accelerate the development of the women's game in Ireland. Yet, as Ireland's most capped player and Grand Slam winner launches the strategy she was brought home six months ago from a high-profile role as Women's High Performance Manager for the South African Rugby Union to formulate and implement, Cantwell also understands the importance of this year's Women's World Cup in England to maximise the potential for growth here. The IRFU's belated focus on accelerating the women's game in Ireland has reignited the national team from its nadir of successive Six Nations wooden spoons in 2022 and 2023 with head coach Scott Bemand's rejuvenated squad securing qualification with a third place in the 2024 championship. An autumn victory over world champions New Zealand helped secure second place in WXV1 and Bemand's team will head to England and a World Cup pool opener against Japan on August 24 with confidence restored having banished the demons of a failure to qualify four years ago. That is clearly an opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of a generation of girls and parents, potential volunteers, vital to building sustainable growth in the women's game. 'The World Cup is absolutely massive,' Cantwell said. 'It's on your doorstep, it's going to break every record under the sun and Ireland have the potential to feel that bounce. 'What's really great is that there is a long-term plan although it's going to take three years to get to the first phase of the end of this strategy but any long-term plan is two World Cup cycles and you're looking to 2033. 'And although it's great for those (future) players, I presented to the (current Ireland) players a couple of weeks ago and the main reason for presenting to them was just to say, 'look, we really want your feedback on this'. 'If I was a player in 2014 and knew there was a long-term plan, the confidence that you would have putting that in your back pocket would just be wonderful.' Cantwell outlined the way the IRFU hopes to take full advantage of a Women's World Cup on Ireland's doorstep, in the same time zone and with a national team capable of at least reaching the quarter-final stage out of a pool also featuring Spain and the defending-champion Black Ferns. Cantwell at a press briefing at the IRFU High Performance Centre. Picture: Ben Brady/Inpho 'The impact of the World Cup, we have to maximise it. There's lots of visibility plans but a legacy programme fundamentally is about how do we maximise the impact sustainably. "How do we elevate the game profile-wise so that more girls pick up a rugby ball, that they go to their local rugby club and have a positive experience, that there's a game for them and a pathway for them doesn't stop when they're 12 and come back at 16, that there's hygienic facilities and kit that fits them, a competition and a coach that teaches them the game. 'There's a big call-out to increase volunteers and coaches and referees. It's a massive piece but, a legacy programme, if you look to (Australia's national football team) the Matildas, a legacy programme can be four years and the more funding that you have the more of an impact you can have. 'What we're trying to do is position the strategy as part of that legacy so that we can elevate lots of the stuff we're doing in the strategy. 'I'm keen to elevate a lot of the work that Anne-Marie Hughes does as our diversity inclusion lead. She has been doing some incredible work over the past two years around helping make our clubs more inclusive. 'What she will have found and this speaks to boys and men, community sport, if you're a person in a community and you have a rugby club in that community you either don't know it's there or don't feel welcome when you walk in. "Through simple examples like walking tracks through Healthy Ireland funding. Portarlington is a great example. They put a walking track in their club and in the next three years had tripled their minis numbers and significantly increased their volunteers. 'That's what we want to be able to do and that's the point of having these insights and recognising where these clubs are popping up, in more ladies gaelic football communities. Women's rugby is more of that type of sport, yes it has international aspirations. 'So being able to try and use the World Cup to elevate the planning that we're doing, to elevate the profile of what we're doing, there's a huge piece in giving confidence to sponsors to know where the women's game is going. 'What the World Cup has done is they've secured 15 sole sponsors for the World Cup and we hope to get all of that data at the other side to stand in front of sponsors and say there is a massive future here, get on board now. Currently we're at an early stage of that.'
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- 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.
