We first started covering Ireland Women at the 2010 World Cup at Surrey Sports Park in Guildford and having worked through our coverage during the shutdown we decided, after a bit of encouragement from Fiona Hayes, to put together an Ireland Women Dream Team for the last 10 years.

We’ll be contacting all the Womens AIL Clubs for their nominations in the next day or so and then we will have an open vote for each position and to help you make up your mind we’ve pulled together some stats from the past decade to remind you of some of the key players over that period.

The information here is only related to the 11 years that we have covered.

Games Played

We looked at 71 games over the past 11 years. The games were World Rugby Ranking Games in the Six Nations, World Cup and, laterly, Autumn Internationals.

Ireland’s results, win ratio and points scored are shown below by each calendar year.

YEAR	PL	W	WIN%	F	A	PD
2010	5	3	60%	94	90	4
2011	5	2	40%	74	70	4
2012	5	3	60%	109	41	68
2013	5	5	100%	88	26	62
2014	10	6	60%	242	143	99
2015	6	4	67%	142	34	108
2016	8	3	38%	120	147	(27)
2017	10	6	60%	170	184	(14)
2018	7	2	29%	104	148	(44)
2019	6	1	17%	91	171	(80)
2020	4	3	75%	70	60	10
SUMMARY	71	38	54%	1304	1114	190

Looking at it with a broad brush, Ireland kicked off January 2010 Ranked 8th in the World and started January 2021 with the same rankings. So has it been a decade of consolidation?

Of course not and it would have been pretty boring if it had been. In fact, good and bad, it’s been quite an eventful period with Ireland women picking up 1 Grand Slam, 1 Championship and 2 Triple Crowns in the Six Nations; a Semi Final in the World Cup; and a brief period at No 2 in the World Rankings and this was all in the first four years of the decade.

Unfortunately, after the heady heights of 2014, it’s been a steady downward trend as you can see from the win ratio 2 year trend line in red in the graph below.

There appears to be the start of a revival of Ireland’s fortunes at the start of 2020 but so disrupted were those games by the looming shadow of the pandemic that it’s difficult to state if this is a genuine revival or a blip due to the extraordinary circumstances.

The People In Charge

Over the period Ireland had three Senior Coaches with Philip Doyle the most successful by some distance.

At the end of the day you have to look at the impact of the coaching on the team performance and the most striking aspect outside of the win ratios are in the points for and against. Since Doyle’s tenure Ireland have scored an average of 5 points less per match and conceded 10 points more giving an average negative swing of 15 points per game.

Players Used

According to the records we have a total of 112 players named in the squads for the 71 games we looked at.

PLAYERS USED

Ireland Women Players Used between 2010 and 2020

PLAYER	STARTS	REPS	TOTAL
Ailis Egan	41	6	47
Ailsa Hughes	9	4	13
Aine Donnelly	4	1	5
Alison Miller	42	2	44
Amy Davis	15	15	30
Anna Caplice	9	6	15
Anne-Marie O’Hora	0	2	2
Aoife Doyle	3	2	5
Aoife McDermott	13	0	13
Ashleigh Baxter	18	7	25
Beibhinn Parsons	5	3	8
Brittany Hogan	0	1	1
Carol Staunton	4	5	9
Caroline Mahon	0	2	2
Chloe Pearse	0	2	2
Chris Fanning	0	2	2
Ciara Cooney	10	12	22
Ciara Griffin	30	3	33
Ciara O’Connor	2	13	15
Claire Boles	0	3	3
Claire Keohane	2	1	3
Claire McLaughlin	7	12	19
Claire Molloy	61	3	64
Cliodhna Moloney	19	4	23
Deirbhile Nic a Bhaird	2	2	4
Deirdre O’Brien	0	5	5
Dorothy Wall	1	3	4
Edel McMahon	5	5	10
Eimear Considine	13	3	16
Elaine Anthony	4	3	7
Elise O’Byrne-White	3	0	3
Eliza Downey	3	0	3
Ellen Murphy	2	6	8
Emer McManamly	1	2	3
Emma Hooban	3	4	7
Enya Breen	4	0	4
Fiona Coghlan	29	1	30
Fiona Hayes	2	22	24
Fiona O’Brien	0	6	6
Fiona Reidy	7	14	21
Geraldine Rea	5	0	5
Gill Nolan	0	5	5
Gillian Bourke	32	3	35
Grace Davitt	13	4	17
Hannah Casey	3	5	8
Hannah O’Connor	0	2	2
Hannah Tyrrell	15	2	17
Heather O’Brien	20	12	32
Helen Brosnan	4	0	4
Ilse van Staden	0	7	7
Jackie Shiels	6	21	27
Jeamie Deacon	4	2	6
Jennie Finlay	0	2	2
Jenny Murphy	22	10	32
Joanne O’Sullivan	5	0	5
Joy Neville	20	0	20
Judy Bobbett	3	0	3
Juliet Short	2	0	2
Kate O’Loughlin	5	0	5
Kathryn Dane	7	3	10
Katie Fitzhenry	9	5	14
Katie Norris	1	7	8
Katie O’Dwyer	0	2	2
Kerri Ann Craddock	1	5	6
Kim Flood	8	2	10
Larissa Muldoon	24	27	51
Laura Feely	5	11	16
Laura Guest	12	14	26
Laura Sheehan	3	3	6
Lauren Day	3	7	10
Lauren Delany	12	0	12
Leah Lyons	13	12	25
Leigh Dargan	0	3	3
Linda Djougang	5	6	11
Lindsay Peat	25	6	31
Liz Burke	2	0	2
Louise Austin	4	1	5
Louise Beamish	3	2	5
Louise Galvin	2	3	5
Lynne Cantwell	29	0	29
Mairead Coyne	11	5	16
Mairead Kelly	6	4	10
Marie Louise Reilly	49	0	49
Mary Healy	4	11	15
Megan Williams	6	1	7
Michelle Claffey	7	5	12
Neve Jones	0	1	1
Niamh Briggs	45	1	46
Niamh Kavanagh	15	4	19
Niamh Ni Dhroma	0	1	1
Nichola Fryday	11	7	18
Nicole Cronin	7	10	17
Nicole Fowley	8	0	8
Nikki Caughey	6	9	15
Nora Stapleton	39	6	45
Orla Brennan	4	1	5
Orla Fitzsimons	7	8	15
Paula Fitzpatrick	31	12	43
Ruth O’Reilly	10	12	22
Sarah Mimnagh	1	6	7
Sene Naoupu	34	7	41
Shannon Houston	1	6	7
Sharon Lynch	1	4	5
Sinead Ryan	1	4	5
Siobhan Fleming	12	8	20
Sophie Spence	34	6	40
Stacey-Lea Kennedy	3	12	15
Tania Rosser	7	4	11
Victoria Dabanovich O’Mahony	0	4	4
Vikki McGinn	1	1	2
Yvonne Nolan	1	3	4
Zoe Grattage	3	4	7
TOTALS	1065	548	1613

We make it a total of 80 new caps over that period with Philip Doyle introducing 22 new players over his 30 games, Tom Tierney introduced 28 over his 24 games and Adam Griggs has introduced 30 over his 17 games to date.

From the table above it would be fair to say that Claire Molloy has been the most influential player of the past decade with the wing forward appearing in 90% of the 71 games played.

Points Scored

Ireland Women scored 1,304 points over the 71 games. The points came from 192 tries, 91 conversion (47% conversion rate) and 51 penalties.

There were 53 different scorers over the 71 games and you can view the individual players in the table below.

IRELAND SCORERS

PLAYER	T	C	P	DG	PTS
Ailis Egan	5				25
Alison Miller	22				110
Amy Davis	1				5
Anna Caplice	2				10
Aoife McDermott	1				5
Ashleigh Baxter	2				10
Beibhinn Parsons	3				15
Ciara Griffin	5				25
Claire Keohane		2			4
Claire Molloy	12				60
Cliodhna Moloney	3				15
Eimear Considine	4				20
Eliza Downey	3				15
Ellen Murphy			2		6
Enya Breen	1				5
Ger Rea	1				5
Gillian Bourke	8				40
Grace Davitt	1	1			7
Hannah Tyrrell	3	3	1		24
Heather O’Brien	6				30
Jackie Shiels		5			10
Jennifer Murphy	5	1			27
Joy Neville	6				30
Kate O’Loughlin	1				5
Katie Fitzhenry	1				5
Kim Flood		2			4
Larissa Muldoon	3				15
Laura Sheehan	2				10
Lauren Delany	2				10
Leah Lyons	5				25
Linda Djougang	2				10
Lindsay Peat	5				25
Liz Burke	1				5
Louise Beamish	1				5
Lynne Cantwell	5				25
Mairead Kelly	1				5
Marie Louise Reilly	1				5
Megan Williams	1				5
Niamh Briggs	15	51	44		309
Niamh Kavanagh	6				30
Nicole Fowley		4	1		11
Nikki Caughey	1	1			7
Nora Stapleton	1	17	6		57
Orla Brennan	2				10
Paula Fitzpatrick	11				55
Penalty Try	5	4			33
Sene Naoupu	5				25
Sharon Lynch	2				10
Siobhan Fleming	2				10
Sophie Spence	12				60
Stacey Lea Kennedy	1				5
Tania Rosser	3				15
Vikki McGinn	1				5
TOTALS	192	91	54	0	1304

Leading Points Scorer

Niamh Briggs is the leading scorer over the 71 games, amassing 309 points in 46 appearances. It wasn’t just through her colossal boot though, with 15 tries to her name, Briggs in Ireland’s second leading try scorer over that period.

Leading Try Scorer

It’ll be no surprise that Alison Miller is the leading try scorer with 22 tries over 44 games. A prolific scorer throughout her career Millar averaged a try every two games.