Women: Don’t tell anyone but the league kicks off this weekend!

John McMurtry

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September 12, 2013

I must have dreamt that Ireland Women Grand Slammed the 6 Nations last year and I must be imagining that the IRB 2014 Women’s World Cup takes place next August as the amount of publicity for the start of the women’s season has been decidedly underwhelming!

Ulster rugby have no women’s matches in the Fixture section of their brand shiny new website, 44 different leagues and competitions are covered but not one of them involves the ladies game. If you look carefully in their new Ladies section you can find one confirmed fixture for Ulster Women and two TBC for the Inter-provincials, but that is it.

The IRFU have the Ladies AIL 1 fixtures up but there are no fixtures available for the AIL2 leagues and as all the Ulster sides are in AIL2N that doesn’t really help. No women’s inter-provincial fixtures for this season of any description on the IRFU site. Shame!

Anyway, back to the matter in hand! There are a whole two senior women’s game in Ulster this weekend. In fact that is going to be it for the coming season! Since AIL2 was “reorganised” over the summer there are . . .

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5 responses to “Women: Don’t tell anyone but the league kicks off this weekend!”

Cathryn

September 29, 2013

Hi John,

Just wondering are you covering AIL div 2N this year? Loved being kept up to date with all the scores and matches in ulster last year and haven’t seen anything yet this year! Wouldn’t like to think that the women’s game will be getting less coverage.

Reply
1. John
  
  September 30, 2013
  
  Hi Cathryn
  We hope to catch up with AIL2N and start covering matches from this week on.
  
  Reply
Penelope

September 12, 2013

With some players being forced to play sevens because Dublin has messed up womens rugby , the league this year is a farce , nobody even administrating Div 2. Wining a grand slam should have been the springboard to success. I am told that players playing sevens can’t play for club or province is this true, surely they have to play 15s. To be 15 focused I see England lost 5 out of their 6 friendlies because players were abused and over used. Sad to watch their players playing to hold onto possession in a 15s game. I fear for next years 6Ns I can see Ireland getting humped.

Reply
1. John
  
  September 13, 2013
  
  Yeah we’ve been hearing the stories Penelope and it is all rather worrying with undue pressure being put on the girls. The main concern I have is that only one girl got injured during the whole of the six nations campaign but subsequently at least four of the girls suffered fairly severe injuries through participation in the sevens. It seems that sevens has taken over Irish Women’s Rugby and the 15s programme is largely being ignored and is severely underfunded. England and the rest of the leading women’s international sides have already started playing warm up matches and tournaments ahead of the World Cup but as it stands, I think Ireland have only scheduled one warm up game yet the sevens programme can go on weekend jollies to the likes of Portugal! It’s really unbelievable to an outsider that the greatest Ireland Women’s side ever is being decimated in what should be their most important season. I wonder where all the blazers are who were promising the girls all sorts of support after they won the grand slam. Their silence is deafening!
  
  Reply
Ballymoney R.F.C – Womens Team on Facebook

September 12, 2013

This is our league John: http://www.juliegreene.co.uk/rugby/ballymoney/Schedule_2013_2014_Part_1.pdf – and don’t worry – I have been feeling your pain as well 😉

Reply