Gordon D’Arcy: Women’s rugby must forge its own identity rather than follow men’s model

The Ireland women's rugby team takes on the USA and Japan next month in fixtures that should have offered early preparation for next year's World Cup in New Zealand. Instead they represent an unwelcome and painful reminder of a failure to qualify for the tournament.

In a pre-qualifying competition defeats to Spain and Scotland bookended a victory over Italy, and when the dust had settled the Italians earned a direct passage to New Zealand with the Scots heading for a repechage event from which they are likely to emerge. Ireland underperformed massively, something that the players have yet to acknowledge publicly.

There are multiple issues facing women’s rugby in Ireland. It’s an imperfect environment in many respects but there is one area in which it bears favourable comparison to their peer group in the qualifying tournament in Italy, and that is funding.

In the 2019-2020 IRFU accounts, the union spent €2.5 million on women’s representative rugby. By way of comparison, Italy spent €800,000 on the women’s game including domestic rugby and administration salaries. Ireland had six pre-tournament camps, Scotland had one and another was cancelled because of budgetary constraints.

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The focus in Spain in terms of international rugby for the women’s game centres on Sevens. They don’t have access to elite competition at 15s level. So purely based on funding and preparation, Ireland should have been well primed to qualify from the event in Italy.

Ireland are a long way off the top-four sides in the global game and, had they qualified for the World Cup in New Zealand, that might have been reinforced on the pitch

They appeared to be spooked by an opening defeat to Spain, showing evidence of being underprepared mentally in a performance pockmarked by basic errors. It happens. I have the T-shirt, the 2007 Rugby World Cup to cite one example. The Irish women regrouped to beat Italy and then against Scotland seemed to chase an outcome – a bonus-point win would have taken them through to New Zealand directly – rather than guarantee the result.

Game management decisions in not pushing two scores clear left Ireland susceptible to Scotland’s late riposte, a gamble that backfired. The players must own their performances in that tournament, individually and collectively. Ireland didn’t fail because they didn’t have a nice hotel or because of a lack of funding, they did so by underperforming across the three matches.

To move on in a positive vein as a group they have to acknowledge those shortcomings on the pitch. There are other fault lines and they should be identified by the IRFU’s tournament review. Hopefully that analysis will be objective and thorough and that the general findings of the report are made public. The players and coaches deserve that accommodation.

It should not be a finger-pointing exercise but an honest appraisal of where things went wrong so that the same mistakes won’t be made again. There should be no fudging.

Ireland are a long way off the top-four sides in the global game and, had they qualified for the World Cup in New Zealand, that might have been reinforced on the pitch. But even if that was the case it would have been far outweighed by the inspirational value being there would have for young girls looking on.

Take the example set by the Ireland women’s hockey team who are far less well funded yet defied the odds to reach a World Cup final. The structure of the sport and the talent development underpinned that success.

It’s important that the current and subsequent Irish women’s teams are able to escape the shadow of the wonderful achievements of the group that won a Grand Slam, reached a World Cup semi-final and enjoyed Six Nations success (2013-2015). That was a different era in the women’s game and should be regarded as standalone success, not a yardstick by which to judge every team that followed.

Putting performance issues to one side, the failure of the Ireland women’s rugby team to qualify for New Zealand offered a reminder that if foundations are laid on sand no amount of cash is going to prevent the edifice from collapsing. Lavishing money on the professional end of the game is a cosmetic, short-term fix that doesn’t address the core issue for sustainable success; the development of a sport’s grass roots.

Without a vibrant club game consistent success at international level is unattainable. If professionalism or semi-professionalism is part of a future for women’s rugby in Ireland, then players need to be developed at an earlier age. Ireland can no longer rely on crossover talent. There needs to be, predominantly, a rugby intellect at the core of the national team.

In club terms Railway Union winning 142-0 is hardly positive, instead endorsing the suggestion that the AIL is not producing enough players of sufficient quality and that too many are congregated together in a small number of clubs, thereby creating an imbalance in resources and as a consequence in the matches themselves.

A pertinent question is to ask why it is six years since Ireland last won a Women’s Six Nations Championship. England have disappeared into the distance on the back of professionalism, France in hot pursuit on foot of a semi-professional culture. In Ireland the women’s game is hamstrung by a lack of development at grassroots level. That’s where more of the money should be directed.

There is an opportunity to align the clubs, the provinces, the Sevens and the 15s under one roof, and start to build a sustainable future for women's rugby in Ireland

When David Nucifora said he was too busy with the professional game to deal with issues in relation to its amateur sibling, it represented a worrying statement for Irish rugby. The amateur and professional games are like conjoined twins that cannot survive apart. That applies with equal rigour to the women's game.

There is an opportunity to align the clubs, the provinces, the Sevens and the 15s international game under one roof, and start to build a sustainable future for women’s rugby in Ireland. There aren’t enough numbers currently for the national team to excel at Sevens and 15s. It’s been problematic in the past in taking resources from one to give to the other.

There is a Sevens World Cup in Cape Town next year and with the World Series starting in Dubai in December you wouldn’t have to be a shaman to work out that if a conflict of interest arises with some of the marquee names, they’ll be directed towards the Sevens. It’s logical, however unpalatable, for those who prefer the 15-a-side game.

Investment in coaching, in facilities, in trying to attract new faces in clubs, schools and communities, in marketing and promoting the game and all the while improving the spectacle at all levels is vital. More players playing at a better level increases the standard; it lifts everyone, club, provincial and national teams.

Creggs RFC became the first club in Irish rugby to custom-build changing rooms specifically for women and deserves huge praise for that and the manner in which they allow other women’s sports to use those facilities. You’d like to think this would become the standard model sooner rather than later.

No sport can rely on a couple of once in a generation players. Beibhinn Parsons is an anomaly akin to Tadhg Furlong; they would make it despite the system not because of it. The pathway retains an over-reliance on multi-disciplinary, natural athletes like Eimear Considine or Hannah Tyrrell, the latter until her recent retirement from international rugby.

The standard of performance in some of the AIL matches needs to be addressed as well, and potentially with some tweaking of the rules. When kickers cannot reach the touchline with a penalty kick or land a conversion from close to the touchline perhaps the rules need to be tweaked at club level until such a time as those are commonplace.

World Rugby examined the use of a smaller ball but resolved that it was no easier to kick or pass. I wonder if this trialled at club level or elite level. As the head of women's rugby for Wasps, Giselle Mather, pointed out it might be appropriate for juniors but not seniors.

Perhaps all penalties outside the attacking 22 should be moved to a point, 10 metres from the touchline and all conversions taken from in front of the posts. Should the size of pitches be examined? Women’s rugby doesn’t have to be a mirror image of the men’s game. Take the best and adapt the rest.

It’s important to differentiate between underage and club and elite rugby when making these observations. If the box-kick doesn’t translate as well to the women’s club game why employ it? Coaching women shouldn’t rely exclusively on a playbook taken from men’s rugby; nor should the occasions be judged by male standards.

As the activist Caroline Criado Perez outlined in her book, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, advertising at sporting events is mainly directed at men, through alcohol, gambling and financial sponsorship with the atmosphere at matches heady with testosterone and often feral.

At women’s sporting events the mood is more balanced and less feverish. Skill is applauded, the crowd responds to the natural flow of momentum in the game and of course the result matters but not at the cost of the enjoyment of the proceedings.

The women's game needs support, but it also needs a critical examination of what is working and where it can be improved

That should not be mistaken for a lack of passion. The tears and utter devastation on the faces of the Ireland players when they lost out to Scotland in Italy were worth 1,000 words. No one was in any doubt how much that defeat hurt. Passion has no gender.

Ireland missed a key marker in failing to qualify for next year’s World Cup. For every one they miss there are a few in the union’s ivory towers that will tut and argue that the money spent on the women’s game cannot be justified. Setbacks provide ammunition.

The women’s game needs support, but it also needs a critical examination of what is working and where it can be improved, to forge a distinct identity rather than simply follow the men’s model.

It’s about transparency and showing how they can recognise and isolate elements of the system that are not working, effectively change them and in doing so create a proper integrated approach to women’s rugby in Ireland.