Womens' rugby Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

IRFU selection policies will never make sense to any of us when it comes to women's rugby, certainly the case for this competition.

They really want the Celtic Challenge to fail don't they? Wales can't be bothered to stream their game(s) and today's Ireland Vs Scotland is at least going to be streamed but isn't it a wonderful idea to schedule it to clash with the England Vs Scotland men's six nations game!

It was an entertaining game bar the long injury stoppage (8ish minutes) and I'm really irked that I haven't been able to find any kind of update on the injury. You would like to think that with the Siobhan Cattigan story still rumbling on thanks to their silence the SRU would have been out vocally at least saying she's getting the best possible care even if they had nothing better to say ...

And of course I also forgot to mention that also at the same time were the WAIL cup series games to try and make absolutely certain there was the smallest possible audience.

I also cringed so hard when during the pre-game set of video packages on stream the IRFU ran their joke of a video about how they have decided they want Sport Ireland's money so they will comply with the requirement to increase the female composition of their board. It's going to be fun to see who they manage to co-opt and trot out to try to maintain the status quo, let's just say I'm not expecting to see that Neve Jones is going to be on the board as an Ulster representative ;)

Saw this during the week. It's absolutely terrifying. Wishing her a full recovery.

Holy mother of FSM the Scots are streaming IT and even have multiple cameras, a ref mic and replays! They even had the sense to abbreviate the Irish team to CMP instead of CP ;)

Of course after the last one clashing with the men's England Vs Scotland game this one is clashing with Ireland Vs Italy /facepalm

Great start all around though first try comes from a very generous decision not to call the final pass forward.

We'll soon know real ability of Ireland women's team at 6 nations.

The good thing is Enya Breen's comeback. Lately 7's rugby looks perfectly different game to 15th, so sevens player(although they are in near world class) will not useful at once. And they are so tired after long and hard tour. So Ireland need to make powerfull FW. Is it???? ,

Who are professional contractplayers with IRFU? (Scotland released )

Honestly, maybe the target of this team will be to avoid tragic defeats at home vs France and England game. And hopefully minimum (at least)1win at away. It's very harsh work.- And it will be said that if they win even 1 game, players do verry well.

At last, it looks 7'stars(Parsons, Flood, Murphy -Crowe, Higins Mulhall etc) are out.

Thank you.I wasn't be aware that. There are some non contracted players in this spring squads and is there some way to be professional if they hope it? No Budget problem? On the other hand, I remember dimly that 29 players of 15th rugby will become pro-contracted players.Is it wrong? I am a bit confused.

Of course it's a "premium" article so bound to get as little attention as his epic thread of threads on twitter which have been airing the IRFUs sordid laundry.

Meanwhile Hunter is retiring after England's first game so we presumably won't face them with a team (possibly even entire 23) with less caps than a single player. Packer will be past 90 by then (I'm guessing Scarrett won't be back) but with it being our third game the likely close to 30 caps our team should have added in the first couple of games should make sure we get past her.

162 caps in the starting XV is just 24 more than Sarah Hunter. Our 4 most capped players fall just short of having as many caps as the other 19. I make it 6 in the UK and I think Djougang has only played a bit for the Combined Provinces since returning so listing her as OB/Leinster is questionable. 14 of the Wales 23 have wikipedia pages which say they have a combined 397 caps, I couldn't find a list of all the caps easily? Average ages would also be fun! It speaks volumes when even the Delilah banning Welsh highlight our player turnover.

It's been confirmed (for now) the 7s players won't be getting dropped in at any point. If they have a good weekend in Hong Kong to guarantee (or close enough) the Olympic spot through the VIP entrance I wonder if that panic button will be pressed creating another round of chaotic debate. Given the relatively late announcement I wonder if the one bad day in Vancouver (with no ALMC) made the decision.

I'm really fearful we are going to finish last and be on our way to division 3 of the WXV. Even if we somehow catch Wales cold and pull out a miracle win (I can't believe the bookie I checked has it as only a 2 point game) it's still likely to come down to the last game against Scotland as I really can't see us beating Italy let alone England and France. I wonder what odds I'd get on the IRFU withdrawing from the WXV pleading poverty or some other excuse?

I'd love to know the terms of the deals with the Premiership players and to have been a fly on the wall for any of the approaches they made!

I'm not convinced we will finish last but I'm also not convinced we won't.

AFAIU 4th/5th go into WXV 2, 6th will go into WXV 3 where Spain will most likely be waiting with the long knives to take them down a peg.

We're about to find out ;) I mentioned Hunter just because I'd previously mentioned her as a benchmark of how green our squad is, without the Japan tour we would have a team with less caps than her. The Djpougang thing was a bit of an irrelevant way to point to the disconnect from the AIL and that she hasn't played much recently (hands up though, I've no idea if she had an injury).

The optimist in me says 1-1 with Japan means we probably are able to win against Wales/Scotland. The pessimist says we caught Japan cold in the first game and then they took us back down to our level which is a step behind Scotland (who could have beaten Wales in the world cup) let alone Wales.

Terrible display by Ireland today against Wales.

i thought that after managing to get the Coach sacked and all that talk about slurry out of the way that they would step up to the plate.

Unfortunately not happening.