BY RICHARD BULLICK
SKIPPER Edel McMahon returns to lead Ireland in this Sunday’s second Guinness Six Nations match against Italy in Parma (3.00PM BST) as one of three changes to the starting team from the 27-15 defeat to France in last Saturday’s opening game at Ravenhill.
The Exeter Chiefs flanker, who began on the bench in the French fixture, comes into the back row at the expense of Ulster powerhouse Brittany Hogan, who had started all 13 Test matches of the Scott Bemand era up until now.
There is still one Ulster player in the run-on line-up however, with Dublin-born Fiona Tuite displacing another of Bemand’s stalwarts, Dorothy Wall, in what will be regarded as an unexpected change in the second row.
Tuite will link up with Leinster prospect Ruth Campbell, who made her Six Nations debut last weekend, in an inexperienced engineroom pairing for an Ireland side still missing McMahon’s official co-captain Sam Monaghan due to injury.
Bemand’s only other change sees the fit-again Aoibheann Reilly, who started all five matches in last season’s Six Nations and was shortlisted for Ireland Player of the Year along with Aoife Wafer and Hogan, recalled at the base of the scrum in place of Emily Lane.
Reilly looked lively as a replacement against France and predictably reclaims the green No 9 jersey just under 10 months from sustaining the cruel cruciate rupture which ruled her out of playing sevens for Ireland at last summer’s Paris Olympics.
Rather than turning to Reilly’s experienced Connacht captain Nicole Fowley as her halfback partner, Ireland boss Bemand has unsurprisingly backed young outhalf Dannah O’Brien despite her three missed conversions against France.
The 21-year-old Carlow woman had the best percentage of any place-kicker in the 2024 Six Nations and also landed the winning conversion in Vancouver last autumn as Ireland produced a stunning upset of world champions New Zealand.
Fowley doesn’t make the bench as Bemand again goes with a 6:2 split, so Clovers captain Enya Breen will once more cover outhalf along with backing up the unchanged centre combination of Eve Higgins and Aoife Dalton, who is set to win her 20th cap.
Higgins took a horrible bang to the face at Ravenhill in an incident which saw the French culprit rightly red-carded after a bunker review but returned to the field after receiving stitches to her mouth and passing a head injury assessment.
It was a bruising battle against France but Bemand had indicated on Thursday that there were no casualties ahead of the Italian job and, along with Higgins continuing at centre, Cliodhna Moloney is named on the bench despite leaving Ravenhill on crutches.
The hugely-experienced Exeter Chiefs hooker will again be back-up to Ulsterwoman Neve Jones, who won a third consecutive Premiership Women’s Rugby title with Gloucester Hartpury just six days before facing France.
Ballymena native Jones scored Ireland’s second try against the French and threw superbly on an afternoon when Ireland lost just one of their 19 lineouts in what was a much-improved set-piece performance compared to last spring’s Six Nations.
Props Niamh O’Dowd and this team’s most capped player Linda Djougang again pack down either side of Jones having put in huge shifts in Belfast where neither of them were replaced until the final couple of minutes.
World Breakthrough Player of the Year Erin King continues in the No 7 jersey so regular openside McMahon will pack down in the less familiar blindside role she occupied when coming on as a straight swap for Hogan against France.
Having started Bemand’s previous dozen games in charge at No 8, Hogan had shifted to the flank last day to accommodate Ireland’s Player of the Year Wafer packing down in the middle of the back row, though the pair had been used interchangeably before anyway.
After another superb performance for her country, including bagging a brace of tries and producing an impressive slate of statistics on either side of the ball, awesome Wexford woman Wafer was voted Player of the Round in the week she turned 22.
Wafer shares a birthday with McMahon, nine years older, whose recall to the starting team is a welcome belated present compared to this time 12 months ago when she was left out of the matchday squad against Italy after a first Six Nations outing as captain against France.
Both Hogan and Wall will provide real ballast off the bench on Sunday against an Italian team aiming for their third consecutive victory over Ireland, who haven’t had an away win in the Six Nations for four years.
Grace Moore is the third English-based back five forward on a bench completed by Breen, Lane and Moloney plus back-up props Siobhan McCarthy and experienced campaigner Christy Haney, who will hope for a bit more game-time than against France.
Ireland’s back three is unchanged with last Saturday’s matchday captain, Amee-Leigh Costigan (formerly Murphy-Crowe) continuing on the left wing, rangy utility three-quarter Anna McGann again selected on the right and Stacey Flood in the No 15 jersey.
Fullback Flood sent a couple of kicks out on the full by agonisingly small margins last weekend which proved costly but also showed glimpses of her all-round quality having just returned from surgery on an ankle injury sustained playing for Wolfhounds on February 1.
She should benefit from having that match under her belt and, although frustrated at the feeling of what might have been against France, Ireland can take enough encouragement from that Kingspan Stadium performance to be confident facing Italy.
Italy also lost their opening game, going down 38-5 against an experimental England line-up but they will take encouragement from holding the world’s top ranked nation in women’s rugby scoreless for most of the second half last Sunday.
Sunday’s match is live on Virgin Media One and BBC Two Northern Ireland.
Ireland:
15. Stacey Flood (Railway Union RFC)(15)
14. Anna McGann (Railway Union RFC)(7)
13. Aoife Dalton (Old Belvedere RFC/Leinster)(19)
12. Eve Higgins (Railway Union RFC)(22)
11. Amee-Leigh Costigan Railway Union RFC/Munster)(14)
10. Dannah O’Brien (Old Belvedere RFC/Leinster)(20)
9. Aoibheann Reilly (Blackrock College RFC/Connacht)(13)
1. Niamh O’Dowd (Old Belvedere RFC/Leinster)(12)
2. Neve Jones (Gloucester-Hartpury)(31)
3. Linda Djougang (Old Belvedere RFC/Leinster)(42)
4. Ruth Campbell (Old Belvedere RFC/Leinster)(3)
5. Fiona Tuite (Old Belvedere RFC/Ulster)(11)
6. Edel McMahon (Exeter Chiefs/Connacht)(31)(captain)
7. Erin King (Old Belvedere RFC)(5)
8. Aoife Wafer (Blackrock College RFC/Leinster)(12)
Replacements:
16. Cliodhna Moloney (Exeter Chiefs)(39)
17. Siobhán McCarthy (Railway Union RFC/Munster)(5)
18. Christy Haney (Blackrock College RFC/Leinster)(20)
19. Grace Moore (Trailfinders Women/IQ Rugby)(18)
20. Dorothy Wall (Exeter Chiefs/Munster)(33)
21. Brittany Hogan (Old Belvedere RFC/Ulster)(28)
22. Emily Lane (Blackrock College RFC)(11)
23. Enya Breen (Blackrock College RFC/Munster)(26).
