Women: Mixed fortunes in Day 1 for Ireland Women’s 7’s.

—

by

John McMurtry

We are currently carrying out a necessary behind-the-scenes upgrade to how images are stored and delivered on The Front Row Union Sports. With over 770,000 images on the site, we are moving our entire image library to a dedicated cloud storage service. This means images will load faster for you, regardless of where you are in the world, and the site will be more reliable overall.

As we are working on three separate versions of images during the offload process, the site cache sometimes struggles to keep up with which version to display and occasionally post grid images or complete galleries may fail to appear. This is a temporary side effect of the migration process — the image exists and is safe, it is simply in the process of being moved to its new home and identified as being there. A refresh of the page will usually bring them back, however, if it does not please contact john@thefrontrowunion.com stating clearly the post address and we will restore it as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience.

We expect the bulk of the image migration to be completed by the end of June 2026, with a fully upgraded version of the site ready to launch in August 2026. Once that work is done, the site will be noticeably faster, images will load more reliably, and you will not see any further disruption of this kind. Thank you for your continued support of The Front Row Union Sports.

Ireland Women in training at a rather cold Atlanta!
Ireland Women in training at a rather cold Atlanta!

Ireland Women’s 7’s had mixed fortunes in Day 1 of the World Series Women’s Sevens in Atlanta, winning one and losing two of their pool fixtures.

Drawn in a tough pool alongside New Zealand, England and Netherlands it was always going to be a big ask for teh inexperienced Irish side but despite heavy losses to England (32 – 0) and New Zealand (36 – 7) the girls in green finished off the pool stages in some style with a surprising 12 – 10 win against an experienced Dutch side.

The Ireland scorers included, Ulster’s own, who bagged a try and conversion against the All Blacks with competition débutante Nicola Cronin grabbing a try against the Netherlands as did experienced captain with  slotting over the vital conversion.

The girls will now face China in the Bowl Semi Final and if they win will, more than likely, face the Netherlands in a rematch in the Bowl Final. The match against China kicks off at 13:28 in Atlanta, 18:28 in UK/IRE. Coverage here.

It’s a mark of improvement for the squad which includes three new players who have been identified as part of the IRFU’s on-going talent identification programme. With the bulk of last seasons squad now back defending their title in the Six Nations coach Jon Skurr has been forced to look further afield for talent in what will be a development season alongside the world’s elite.

The programme, which is open to the wider athletic and team sport community, offers elite athletes the opportunity to join an Olympic programme in what is a new and exciting international female sport.

IRELAND WOMEN’S SEVENS 
1. (Talent ID Programme)
2. (Munster)
3. (Connacht)
4. Claire Keohane (Munster)
5. (Talent ID Programme)
6. (Munster)
7. (Talent ID Programme)
8. (Exiles)
9. (Connacht)
10. (Munster)
11. Nikki Caughey (Ulster)
12. Shannon Houston (Leinster) (capt)
13. (Munster)
14. (Leinster)

IF in Doubt, sit them out

Download the UK Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport Here

Corrections

Drop us a note below if there are any corrections required in this article.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Rugby Latest