Women’s rugby needs a pathway to winning, says veteran prop

Wales v Ireland

Cardiff Arms Park, Sunday, 1.30pm

If some positives are to come from Ireland’s briefly encouraging but mostly shambolic Six Nations campaign, then the IRFU must listen and act upon the wake-up call delivered this week by veteran prop Lindsay Peat.

“It can’t go on the way it is,” implored the 38-year-old former Dublin footballer and international basketballer. “We need to look at how do we get to train or have training matches. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place on how we fix those things because it is pitch time, it is contact time. It is doing the review on video and now going out to fix it.

“We saw it with the men, just bringing it back to simple things, but they got to do that during the week. We just don’t have that contact time midweek. We’re in at camp and trying to fit everything into two days. Even one day.”

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Defeat at the Arms Park on Sunday would see Ireland finish fifth in the Six Nations with one victory over Scotland.

We need a summer series, or even a short mini-tournament. I haven't had enough rugby since November

“I’m a personal believer in learning from mistakes,” Peat continued. “They’re never easy, they’re often embarrassing and frustrating, but you’d hope we have the mentality to never make that mistake again.

“We’re just not getting the opportunity to do it now.

“We need a summer series, or even a short mini-tournament. I haven’t had enough rugby since November, since the injury, and you can see that. We need underage, we need schools, we need secondary schools, we need clubs, we need provincial and we need international, and until that pathway is there on an equal pegging throughout, we’re going to remain behind.”

IRELAND: L Delany; E Considine, E Breen, S Naoupu, B Parsons; N Fowley, K Dane; L Peat, D Nic a Bháird, F Reidy; A McDermott, N Fryday; C Griffin (capt), C Molloy, C McLaughlin. Replacements: E Hooban, L Djougang, L Feely, E McMahon, A Caplice, N Cronin, E Murphy, L Sheehan.