The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman Award for April: Aoife Wafer (Rugby)
There’s probably no handier way these days of measuring a player’s contribution to their team in any given campaign than by totting up their Fantasy points.
So, how did Aoife Wafer fare in the official 2025 Six Nations version of said challenge? A single player, France‘s Teani Feleu, outscored her – and she played one game more.
[ Ireland’s Aoife Wafer: ‘Ultimately, I want to be the best in the world’ ]
“If not for the knee injury sustained in round four that ruled her out of round five, Aoife Wafer may well have topped the fantasy leader board,” the Fantasy Rugby Six Nations site’s summary of the tournament stated.
“In all four appearances, she was unstoppable – posting the highest fantasy score in both round one and round four. She carried for 423 metres (the most by any forward), beat 17 defenders and scored four tries.
“Off the back of an outstanding 2024 Championship, Wafer has now cemented herself as a world-class prospect and will likely be the first name on many fantasy team-sheets for 2026.”
In other words, she had yet another rather useful campaign. At the end of it, the 22-year-old Wexford native was named in the team of the tournament, alongside Irish comrades Neve Jones and Aoife Dalton. For the second year running, she was among the four nominees for the Six Nations Player of the Year award.
Still, some of her Fantasy managers weren’t happy.
“When I was ruled out of the Scotland game, I got a few messages from people I’ve never met. It was like, ‘Why are you injured – what am I going to do with my team?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know’,” she said.
“But it’s cool. I was up at Donnybrook recently for the Leinster youth finals and this man and his son came up to me and asked for a photo. We stayed chatting for a bit, they were talking about playing Fantasy Rugby and how they had to replace me for the Scotland game.
“It just kind of dawned on me how brilliant this is for women’s rugby. The boy’s school did a fantasy league for the men’s Six Nations and he came second, so he was like, ‘Right, I’m going to win it with the women’s one’.
“At the start he was saying they hadn’t a clue who anyone was, who the good players were, who’d score loads of points. But by the end they were rattling off the names and they knew exactly who everyone was. And he won. It’s such a good way for fans to learn about the women’s game. It’s fantastic.”
The problem now for Fantasy devotees of Wafer is that her price is going through the roof. “My older brother plays it and he was slagging me, he said cost-wise I went from below 10 last year to over 22 this time.” She’s becoming unaffordable.
And she’s become indispensable for Ireland, that knee-ligament injury, sustained in the Six Nations game against Wales, a desperate worry in the build-up to this summer’s World Cup, not least after the loss of Erin King and Dorothy Wall, also through injury.
Wafer has encouraging news, though. “It’s not too bad now. I’m in a brace, but that’s just precautionary and all that craic. I’m in really good hands with the IRFU. The medical team there are class. They’re looking after me well. Hopefully I’ll be involved in some of the training in our first World Cup camp next month and I’ll just build it back up naturally.”
While it was an outstanding Six Nations campaign for Wafer on a personal level, it was a mixed one for the team as a whole: big wins over Italy and Wales, a missed opportunity against France, a storming first half against England followed by a second half to forget, then a disappointing end to it all with defeat by Scotland.
“That’s how it was all right, highs and lows. We have plenty of positives to take from it, especially putting on high scores away to Italy and Wales, but it was disappointing that we finished on not so high of a note against Scotland. The French game was the one that got away, and after that phenomenal first half against England it’s a pity we couldn’t keep it going for longer,” she said.
“Probably the main thing we’ll take from it is the need to be more ruthless, more clinical when we have our chances, just really putting our foot on the opposition’s throats. And being patient – it doesn’t matter how many phases it takes as long as we hold on to the ball, eventually a defence will crack and we’ll get through.
“Against France, it was more about us losing rather than them winning, if that makes the sense – they took their chances, we didn’t. But that’s what Tier One nations do.”
Ireland will hope to put those lessons to good use at this summer’s World Cup where they have been drawn in a pool with Japan, Spain and New Zealand, who they play in that order.
“I have countdowns on my phone and they nearly all revolve around the World Cup. It’s something I’m constantly thinking about. I’m buzzing about it. For a lot of us, it’ll be our first World Cup, so we can’t wait to get going,” she said.
“It’s a busy spell for all of us, coming off the back of the Six Nations and going in to the build-up for the World Cup. But I love it. I’ve nearly been banned from the HPC [High Performance Centre]; I nearly live there. I just love training and being in that kind of environment. When I get a break, I’m just itching to get back to be honest.
“I’m happy with what I’ve produced for Ireland so far, but I’m my own worst critic. I set goals quite high and I expect a lot from myself because I want to be the best in the world and the best version of me for the team. Still, I reckon there’s a lot more in me.”
Fantasy price? Soaring.
Previous monthly winners – December: Ellen Walshe (swimming); January: Hazel Finn (basketball); February: Lara Gillespie (cycling); March: Kate O’Connor and Sarah Healy (athletics).
