Ireland’s star centre pairing Aoife Dalton (left) and Eve Higgins at Wednesday’s press conference
RICHARD BULLICK IN EXETER
NO-ONE who knows the steady way Aoife Dalton operates will be remotely surprised to hear that it’s largely just business as usual this week for the level-headed 22-year-old Ireland Player of the Year ahead of the biggest game of her career on Sunday.
Last weekend, the young Offaly woman played against world champions New Zealand in front of a capacity crowd of over 30,000 in Brighton and now she’s gearing up for a World Cup quarter-final against France at Exeter’s Sandy Park, but Dalton takes it all in her stride.
That Brighton game was the largest Irish support that the national women’s team have ever played in front of and Dalton’s opposite number at outside centre, Stacey Waaka, is not only a two-time World Cup winner but a double Olympic champion as well.
It was a much more competitive contest than the harsh 40-0 scoreline suggests, but those two tries in the last 90 seconds were a real gut-punch for Ireland which must have left it feeling like a fairly chastening afternoon for Scott Bemand’s side.
But Dalton spoke with an impressively pragmatic mix of clarity and calm across a series of interviews in the mixed zone afterwards, candidly acknowledging New Zealand’s deserved victory on the day but already looking ahead to the next challenge with persuasive positivity.
Three days later, she and centre partner Eve Higgins also struck the right notes at a press conference in the team’s new base in Exeter as they reflected on the incredible experience just gone and addressed the French challenge which will define this World Cup campaign.
Dalton didn’t disagree with one of the press pack’s framing of this Sunday as the biggest game of her career to date but was less inclined to go along with the suggestion that the atmosphere might have changed in camp this week now that it’s win-or-bust.
“I think we take the same attitude into every game, we’re just taking it week by week from the first game against Japan up until now. As soon as the game at the weekend was over we just had to switch our minds to France now as our next opponents.
“So I wouldn’t say there has been a change or anything in the atmosphere, we really just take every game as seriously as any other, but as Eve said, our plans were to get to this week (of the quarter-finals) and we can’t wait now.
“Our week layout doesn’t really change that much though and how we approach this game won’t have any major difference to how we approached the others. Essentially they were all kind of knockout games for us,” reasoned Dalton on Wednesday afternoon.
“We had to win the first two games to hopefully guarantee a quarter-final and we managed to do that. We’ll feel it now coming up to the weekend, I’d say a few nerves will come in, but I think the staff and coaches are very good at preparing us for the game mentally.”
It must be reassuring for Ireland boss Bemand that even such a young player is so on the level, yet unsurprising to him in Dalton’s case – as far back as before last year’s Six Nations, when she was still just 20, he had spoken of her ‘stability’ and quietly valuable leadership.
Although she’ll never crave attention, Dalton is a little less reticent and increasingly comfortable undertaking media duties as time goes on and, as such a solid, dependable person, you can see her being trusted by Bemand to speak for the group regularly.
She handled her series of post-match interviews with aplomb last weekend and Ireland’s excellent centre pairing presented a very considered, composed, positive, pleasant, affable front for this Irish squad at the team hotel in Exeter on Wednesday afternoon.
“We’ve been growing both on and off the pitch over these two years. Aoife Dalton might not have said that much two years ago, and she probably doesn’t talk the house down now, but when she talks, people listen.
“She’s accurate, articulate, supportive, can offer challenge in the right space and in the right way, and she’s become a bit of a mainstay for us, hasn’t she, in these big games?” Bemand reflected after Friday’s team announcement.
“In terms of how we’re going as a group – and (skipper) Sam (Monaghan) alluded to a bigger group than just the 32 here – the depth, the maturation of the players, they’ve been growing up in the public eye and they’re acclimatising well.
“So people are kind of hitting the sweet spot really of where they will get to as people and players and, whether it’s this competition or the (next World Cup) in four years, we know we’ve got a group that’s going to keep growing in this space.”
Ireland centre Aoife Dalton swats aside an attempted tackle during the Pool C win against Spain
A resounding defeat wasn’t the outcome the many wearing green would have wanted in Brighton but it was still special for all concerned to be there for what will rightly go down as a landmark day in the history of Irish women’s rugby.
The Ireland players were in unfamiliar white jerseys with maroon trimmings against New Zealand due to World Rugby’s desire to be considerate to those who are colour blind, but there was an astonishing sea of green all around a sold-out stadium.
There was no fairytale ending in the shape of another famous upset of the Black Ferns to join the triumphs of Marcoussis in 2014 and Vancouver last September, but an Ireland side beaten by 40 points still did a full lap of the pitch afterwards acknowledging the support.
As such competitive people, this ambitious bunch of women would have been hurting after failing to score in 80 minutes, and conceding those last two tries to New Zealand right at the death after fighting so hard must have been a deflating feeling.
But at the final whistle this World Cup campaign remained afloat for at least another week and the appreciative players, who are so passionate about growing the ‘Green Wave’, wanted to applaud those who had turned out in unprecedented numbers to back them.
Dalton, who repeatedly punches above her weight and put in another huge shift here, carried her yellow boots for much of the lap to ease her aching feet, but admitted to being blown away by the scale of the Irish support when she spoke to the media afterwards.
Quickly showered and now wearing a bright green T-shirt, unlike lock Ruth Campbell who was brought out to speak still in full playing kit after lingering in the stands, the softly-spoken Dalton reflected with awe and wonder on an occasion which will live long in the memory.
“I really can’t put into words how grateful we are as a group, and for the wider group as well, what it means to us. We’ve never experienced anything like that, walking out to a crowd of 30,000 here and seeing green everywhere was amazing,” she said earnestly.
“Even just getting off the bus, there were so many people around, far more than what we’ve had at home games. We’re so, so thankful to everyone who came out and supported us today and I hope we made them proud at times.
“Everyone singing the Fields of Athenry, that’s the first time experiencing that for all of us,” enthused Dalton, who hadn’t noticed the crowd’s rendition of Zombie, but expressed her hopes for another big turnout of Irish support for the quarter-final in Exeter.
Being interviewed in the mixed zone in Brighton shortly after the match, Dalton had reckoned it might take a few days for the whole occasion in Brighton to sink in fully, so Local Women Sport asked her for her further reflections a few days on. She was still of a similar mind.
“It was amazing. As I said on Sunday, we’ve never experienced anything like that as a group – to go out and see a stadium with 30000 people, just green everywhere, and the crowd were so loud during the national anthem.
“We just don’t get those crowds at home but hopefully we will in the future,” said Dalton, less than 48 hours before it was announced that Ireland’s women will play their first ever standalone match in the Aviva Stadium during next year’s Six Nations.
Aoife Dalton in training during a World Cup in which she has played joint most minutes so far
Aoife had been asked after the Brighton game about being part of the post-haka stand-off when neither Ireland nor New Zealand budged for what felt like an age after the Black Ferns had thrown down their traditional cultural challenge following the anthems.
“We’re very lucky we actually have a few of the girls who live in New Zealand, or are from there, who kind of explained to us what the haka means and stepping forward is supposed to be a sign of respect from us to our opponents.
“So hopefully that was received well and it was really cool to be a part of,” was Dalton’s verdict on another goosebumps moment from an unforgettable occasion for Irish women’s rugby when dozens of ex-internationals made what felt like a special pilgrimage to Brighton.
It was emotional for the stalwarts of yesteryear to see the current Ireland team play on such a massive stage and, speaking on Wednesday, Dalton was mindful and appreciative of what a privilege it had been to be out there and backed by such fantastic support.
“I still can’t really put into words what it all meant, but we’re so grateful for that as a group, the fact that people come out and support us, and I suppose one of our common purposes – we just want to make people proud to be Irish and give them a nice story to follow.”
Speaking the day after the Republic of Ireland’s football team’s horror show in losing against Armenia, a diplomatic Dalton deftly dead-batted a question from RTE as to whether there was now an extra onus on the rugby women to lift the Irish public’s spirits.
“Hopefully we can give them that boost. I didn’t watch the soccer though, sorry! We were busy. I think a few of the staff members saw it. But hopefully we can put out a good performance this weekend and give the Irish people something to follow.”
There had been an awful lot less shame in the Ireland women’s rugby team’s lob-sided loss to the superb Black Ferns than the Republic’s footballers being beaten by Armenian no-hopers who are ranked 105th in the world.
When Dalton had reflected on the match itself on Sunday, she expressed disappointment with aspects of Ireland’s performance but was far from downbeat because of being able to pinpoint what went wrong along with drawing upon positives.
“Definitely not the result we wanted, compounded by probably giving up two bad tries at the end which blew out the score, so coming into next week we’ll need to take as many learnings as we can as quickly as possible and move forward.
“We did have a lot of positive moments out there, but it’s just about being better at capitalising on that, when you think about how many entries we had into their 22 but just couldn’t get points on the board.
“We’ll take lots of learnings from that game, we probably needed that coming into this week and we look forward to a quarter-final now, that’s what we came here for, so we’ve ticked that one off I suppose, qualifying into the quarters.
“New Zealand’s line-speed didn’t surprise us as such, but we just didn’t counteract it all that well. We did kind of know what was coming from reviewing their games and being aware what good defenders they are.
“But probably our breakdowns were just too slow and that allowed them to come up on us a bit more,” said Dalton, who bristled slightly at a journalist’s question as to whether Ireland may have been outmuscled a bit by the world champions.
“I think they did a really good job of slowing our breakdown. We just couldn’t kind of build momentum off that – even when we got into their 22, they managed that really well so that’s probably something we’ve to look at.
“The first two wins (against Japan and Spain) had taken the pressure off us to qualify for the quarter-finals and, now we’re into knockout rugby, we’ll look forward and get ready for a big game next weekend with loads of learnings to apply from today.
“But physicality is one of our pillars, we’ll never step away or shy away from anything like that. Like we know we’re not the biggest team in the world and we train in a way where we can kind of take advantage of being a little bit smaller,” said the 5’2” centre.
The powerfully-built Dalton may be short of stature but is renowned for hitting hard in defence and she came closer than most to punching holes in the impenetrable black wall on Sunday with several ferocious carries, showing wonderful fight for every precious centimetre.
She had largely been confined to those trademark decoy runs which helped produce space for other backs to shine against Japan and Spain but Dalton got her hands on the ball a few times early on in the New Zealand game.
“Some of that probably came off the back of a mistake or two by us in attack, and that’s stuff we’ll probably try to fix up during the week,” said Aoife, who appears to be coping well with the physical and mental toll that an intense few weeks must be taking on the players.
“I suppose after a game you’re always tired, everyone comes out with a few knocks whether they’re big or small. But we’re very lucky with the way we were managed this week – the coaches just tried to get the best out of us on the pitch, made (the sessions) short and sharp.
“I’d say it will be the same this week, we’ll be well looked after and hopefully ready to go again for next weekend. The hard physical work is done in pre-season and now it’s more just about game preparation, including working on how we can capitalise on opportunities.
“As I’ve said, we had all those entries into the 22 and just weren’t able to get a score on the board unlike the last two games [where Ireland were quite clinical in attack, albeit against lesser opposition].
“So a few fix-ups from that. We’ll always have a big session midweek – what day it will be depends on when we’ll be playing again – and that’s a pretty tough session that will always stand to us, so it’s just about getting that balance.”
The durable Dalton tends to clock up more minutes than most and, including the warm-up defeat to fancied Canada, she has played three full Test matches in under a month plus the first hour against Spain, but the compact centre appears to thrive on a heavy workload.
Young Offaly woman Aoife Dalton battles forward on her World Cup debut against Japan last month
She played every minute of last season’s interpros as Leinster retained their title and likewise was on the field for every minute of this spring’s Six Nations, which culminated in her selection in the official Team of the Championship.
“I’m always happy to do whatever is right for the team, whether that’s 80 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever it is, but thankfully I’ve come through in one piece so far and am fine physically so can’t complain.”
Mentally tough and physically fearless, Aoife seemed non-plussed and almost amused to be asked again by the media on Wednesday about the toll the tournament so far has taken and if she and Higgins were feeling ‘back to yourselves’ after that bruising Black Ferns battle.
“I’m fine, the both of us are fine, thank God,” said Aoife, with reference to Paris Olympian Eve alongside her, before adding: “But yeah, they’re a hugely physical side from 1-23 and they never really let up in the game either.
“But I think we prepare ourselves very well for that extreme physicality. We do a lot of work with breakdown stuff and how we match that I suppose and maybe go one more. We’re fine, I don’t really know what to say, sorry!” she shrugged apologetically.
Aoife was in the wars when Ireland beat New Zealand in Vancouver, having to leave the field temporarily to get the blood stopped flowing from her nose and also have a head injury assessment, which she passed, and was then replaced later in that game.
So this was the first time Dalton has gone the distance against New Zealand – “they always come out and start like a house on fire and you really feel the physical battle” – with herself and Higgins up against two world-class centres in Waaka and Slyvia Brunt.
Both the 22-year-old from Clara and that Black Ferns duo were among the total of seven centres to make the World’s Top 50 list ahead of this tournament but the formidable Dalton has a lot less big game experience than her opposite number Waaka.
Waaka scored New Zealand’s first try wide on the right and her arcing run also created a score for Braxton Sorensen-McGee though Dalton couldn’t be blamed for either of those concessions as she was busy putting out fires elsewhere on both occasions.
“I think there were plenty of positives out there from us, but it’s just when you play Tier One nations like the New Zealands and Englands of this world, one mistake in defence or one error in attack and they’re down in the bottom corner, you’re under your own posts.
“They did really well on turnover ball, they moved us round a lot there. They capitalised on our mistakes, but we’ll review it properly, probably tomorrow evening, both taking the positives and any valuable learnings ahead of the next game,” she said afterwards.
Playing regularly against such high-class opposition, individually and collectively, can only improve this emerging Ireland team and Dalton takes the very valid view that all the experiences she has had in international rugby should be beneficial for tests ahead.
“Yeah, I think every game will stand to you regardless of what the score is or who you come up against. As a group, we’ve been through a lot together, and we’ve managed to bounce back from far bigger defeats than the one we had at the weekend.
“I feel we’re in a really good place now, we don’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves for what happened at the weekend – we just have to switch our minds to France and focus on that,” she declared.
Dalton’s demeanour, along with that of Higgins, suggested that the resounding defeat at the hands of New Zealand won’t have knocked confidence or damaged morale ahead of this quarter-final showdown with France to the extent many outsiders may imagine.
The quarter-final against France will be exactly a year to the day since Ireland thrashed an Australia team then ranked fifth in the world 36-10 at Ravenhill to officially launch the IRFU’s 150th anniversary celebrations in real style.
Two weeks later came the famous upset of New Zealand in Vancouver, where Ireland went on to finish runners-up in WXV1, and the subsequent Six Nations brought a record rout of Italy in Parma and an emphatic away win against Wales.
Dalton scored the first of Ireland’s six tries in that impressive victory over Australia and she agreed with Local Women Sport’s suggestion that these past 12 months have been the most productive of her international career to date.
“That game against Australia probably set the tone for what that tour went on to be in Canada – it gave us confidence that we can go out against top-tier nations and give them something to think about,” reflected Aoife.
“Like I don’t know if anyone really expected us to win in Belfast that day and then go on and win our first game of that tournament against New Zealand, but we just want to keep building on performances.
“I suppose you’re only as good as your last one so we just want to put a better one out this weekend,” insisted Dalton, who has faced France three times now in the green jersey, starting with her first home match for Ireland during the 2023 Six Nations whitewash.
Dalton scored her first Six Nations try the only time she has played against France outside of Ireland, in Le Mans last year, so hopefully that may augur well along with it being the anniversary of her touchdown against Australia.
Aoife Dalton shows this Sunday’s opponents France a clean pair of heels in this year’s Six Nations
When the teams met at Ravenhill this spring, Dalton’s blistering break early on had the crowd on their feet and she also came up with two brilliant turnovers, but Ireland left feeling frustrated after falling to a 27-15 defeat despite matching France in the try-count.
But Ireland saw enough that day to fuel belief that they could scalp France should the sides meet in a quarter-final at the World Cup, and that opportunity now beckons in Exeter this Sunday albeit Bemand is missing several leading lights through injury.
France still weren’t officially confirmed as Ireland’s last eight opponents when Dalton was doing her media rounds early Sunday evening, but she remarked: “We know the French well from playing them in the Six Nations every year and facing them is a challenge we’d relish.”
The prolific Dannah O’Brien missed all of her attempted place-kicks in the French fixture in the Six Nations and had an off-day with the boot against Spain in this tournament before being put under claustrophobic pressure in the subsequent New Zealand game.
When a French journalist asked Higgins and Dalton about O’Brien during Wednesday’s press conference, and whether she’s genuinely quiet or ‘has a poker face’, Aoife fielded the question about her fellow teenage debutant from the 2022 summer tour to Japan.
“Dannah, like that’s just the way she is, it’s just her nature and she might come across as very introverted and quiet, but around the group she does come more out of her shell,” revealed Dalton, who is just four months older and quite understated herself.
“I think her performances speak for themselves, like her kicking ability in our opinion is one of the best in the competition and I feel she complements the players around her really well. She makes our life very easy!
“We’ve a lot of bigger voices in the group who kind of do that job (being vocal), like Sam (Monaghan) and Tricky (Edel McMahon), so Dannah just gets on with what she does and leading in her own way in that pivotal position.”
O’Brien will win her 30th cap this Sunday having featured in every single Irish international since she marked her first appearance with six conversions, including of a try by fellow debutant Dalton, against Japan in Shizuoka three years ago.
Dalton is just two behind having been an unused sub against Scotland in the final fixture of the 2024 Six Nations and then sitting out last month’s opening World Cup warm-up match against the same opposition when a number of fringe players were given game-time.
The pair jointly top the Irish chart for most match minutes so far at this World Cup and were probably who Bemand most had in mind when he talked about players ‘growing up in the public eye’ and ‘acclimatising well’.
Dalton, who will make her 25th start for Ireland this weekend and 13th in 15 matches in the past 12 months, told Local Women Sport on the eve of departure for the World Cup how both she and O’Brien try to keep on an even keel and not get too high or low.
They haven’t dropped their heads during those tough times for Ireland, notably the 2023 Six Nations whitewash which came while they were still teenagers, or been carried away with how much they’ve achieved at such a young age.
Skipper Edel McMahon has spoken of how she drew great reassurance from the calm of the unflappable pair, despite their youth, ahead of the opening game of this campaign against Japan as Ireland made their return to the World Cup after an eight-year absence.
Ireland Player of the Year Aoife Dalton has emerged as a valuable leader in Scott Bemand’s set-up
Meanwhile, winger Beibhinn Parsons explained the day before the Japan game how Dalton would be especially instrumental in ensuring everyone was fully switched on for the early (noon) kick-off, again giving an insight into what an influential figure she is in this Irish set-up.
It’s a relatively early start again this Sunday, with a 1pm kick-off at Sandy Park, and Dalton has no doubt that Ireland will need to be on red alert to counter France’s capacity to strike lethally in a variety of ways.
“They just have threats all over the pitch, they like to capitalise on playing high-tempo. They’re really good games players – quick lineouts, ruck attacks, all that kind of stuff – so you just have to be switched on for every element of the game really,” she mused
As on her debut against Japan, O’Brien kicked half a dozen conversions when Ireland met the Sakura XV at the start of this tournament and ex-internationals Niamh Briggs and Hannah Tyrrell sang the praises of both her and Dalton on the RTE podcast afterwards.
“Aoife Dalton is exceptional at what she does, she’s the pocket rocket that’s incredibly powerful, she carries really, really well, she defends really high, I love how she defends – I think she’s Ireland’s best defensive back,” enthused former Ireland captain Briggs.
Briggs, who made the Team of the Tournament at the 2014 World Cup for her heroics including kicking seven points in the famous upset of reigning champions New Zealand, was assistant coach to Bemand’s predecessor Greg McWilliams when the duo debuted in Japan.
“I’m particularly impressed by Aoife Dalton, playing at 13, such a lynchpin position particularly defensively, that’s kind of the area where other teams target to try and free up their wingers and stuff like that,” added Tyrrell, who played in the home World Cup of 2017.
“She’s adapted so well, and she’s had a number of different centre partnerships throughout her short career and has still managed to be a mainstay in that, which just shows her worth, and again someone so young, it’s brilliant.”
“These are going to be the future of Irish rugby for a long, long time. They could have two, three, maybe even four World Cups in them,” said Tyrrell, who recently retired from gaelic football after another All Ireland win with Dublin, when she tore her cruciate in the final.
If Dalton did make four tournaments, she would emulate Ireland’s most capped player of all-time, the IRFU’s current Head of Women’s Strategy Lynne Cantwell, another stocky outside centre to whom she has been compared ever since her Ireland debut.
On paper, O’Brien looks a reasonable bet to be the first Ireland woman to 100 international caps but, although Bemand himself has already referenced the 2029 World Cup, neither of his young guns will be looking beyond this Sunday’s do-or-die clash with the French.
And both will have pivotal parts to play in this bid by Bemand’s side to make history by becoming the first adult Ireland rugby team ever to win a knockout match at a World Cup given that the women of 2014 went straight into the semis courtesy of topping their pool.
The centre pairing of Eve Higgins (left) and Aoife Dalton has been a strength for Ireland at the World Cup
The naturally understated Aoife Dalton has become more comfortable conducting media duties
