Ulster’s representatives in this Ireland training squad include (from right) Neve Jones, Fiona Tuite and Sadhbh McGrath
BY RICHARD BULLICK
ULSTER skipper India Daley, her Enniskillen clubmate Sophie Barrett and teenage prop Cara McLean from County Antrim are among 10 uncapped players included in an Ireland training squad of 37 for a three-day camp in Dublin this week.
The northern province is also represented at Abbotstown by forwards Sadhbh McGrath and Fiona Tuite along with two Ulsterwomen who play their trade in England, Gloucester Hartpury hooker Neve Jones and new Sale Sharks signing Brittany Hogan.
Daley and Barrett’s fellow Fermanagh woman Claire Boles is among nine members of last summer’s World Cup squad who are absent this week as preparations for the 2026 Guinness Six Nations commence.
Recently retired Ulster skipper Alan O’Connor has been unveiled as Ireland’s new forwards coach in succession to Alex Codling, who left after that tournament to take up the same role with Munster’s men.
In another change to Bemand’s management team, former Exeter Chiefs great Gareth Steenson role has been expanded from kicking coach to the Armagh man also looking after Ireland’s backs, with former Ulster captain Larissa Muldoon dropping off the ticket.
Lock Eimear Corri-Fallon, who has bowed out aged 27 to focus on her other career as a hospital doctor, and the oldest member of Ireland’s World Cup squad, outhalf Nicole Fowley, have announced their retirement from international rugby since that tournament.
Ireland co-captain Edel McMahon is out for the season after needing reconstructive surgery on both knees, while there will be speculation surrounding the unexplained absence of Amee-Leigh Costigan, who filled in as skipper a couple of times in last year’s Six Nations.
The others who were at the World Cup but not in camp this week are overseas-based scrumhalf Molly Scuffil-McCabe, loosehead prop Siobhan McCarthy and two players who got no game-time at the England 2025 tournament, Maebh Deely and Ivana Kiripati.
Like Boles and the injured McMahon, none of that quartet featured in the matchday squad of 23 for Ireland’s agonising near miss against France in the World Cup quarter-final in Exeter in the middle of September.
In contrast to Ireland’s nine absentees for this training camp, all but two of England’s winning World Cup squad – the retired duo of Emily Scarratt and Abby Dow – have been included in John Mitchell’s list of 47 players for a similar Red Roses get-together.
Uncapped prop Sophie Barrett from Fermanagh has earned a deserved call-up to this week’s Ireland training camp
Two prominent players who missed the tournament through injury, versatile Exeter Chiefs forward Dorothy Wall and 2024 World Rugby Breakthrough Award winner Erin King, are included after making welcome returns to action in recent week.
However, young hooker Sarah Delaney is still sidelined following shoulder surgery and there is no sign of experienced prop Christy Haney, who was ruled out of the World Cup with a hamstring tear and has yet to feature for Blackrock or Wolfhounds this season.
The highest-profile omission from Ireland’s World Cup squad, dynamic forward Deirbhile Nic a Bhaird, is understood to have quit representative rugby on the back of Munster’s interpro title win at the end of August.
It was announced ahead of the World Cup that Ealing Trailfinders back row Shannon Ikahihifo, who had been in the training panel preparing for that tournament having originally got capped in the 2024 Six Nations, is fighting cancer.
With no McMahon, Boles, Kiripati, Nic a Bhaird or Ikahihifo, there is room for a couple of uncapped players on Ireland’s slate of eight loose forwards for this week along with another two who have just one appearance apiece in the green jersey.
Munster’s Jane Clohessy, daughter of former Ireland legend Peter, won her only cap as a replacement in the final fixture of last spring’s Six Nations, while young Connacht flanker Ailish Quinn came off the bench in the summer’s first World Cup warm-up match.
There are first senior squad call-ups for two young women who have started all three Celtic Challenge games this season so far in the Clovers back row, Connacht’s highly-rated teenage No 8 Jemima Adams-Verling and flanker Rosie Searle from Leinster.
Quinn and that uncapped pair will surely benefit from working with established stars of the calibre of 2025 Six Nations Player of the Championship Aoife Wafer, the almost freakish King, powerhouse Hogan and big Grace Moore.
Ulster skipper India Daley (left) and Erin King (centre) are back in the Irish squad but Maeve Og O’Leary misses out
Including Jones, Ulster accounts for half of the 10 front row forwards who have assembled at the IRFU’s High Performance Centre this week with Queen’s student McLean, who previously played for Larne RFC, the most notable bolter.
Both Barrett and Daley have been travelling reserves for Ireland before but not made it into a matchday squad and are used to these training camps, whereas rookie McLean is one of four complete newcomers to the set-up.
After featuring for Ulster in the interpros at the start of the season, McLean was named in the Wolfhounds squad for their Celtic Challenge title defence and started last month’s competition opener at loosehead before coming off the bench in the next two games.
She has a powerful physique and McLean’s standing is reflected in the fact she captained Ireland at last spring’s Under 18 Six Nations Festival, leading the girls in green to victories over England, Scotland and Italy.
This is another good development opportunity for McLean to learn her trade behind the Gloucester Hartpury pair of former England international Ellena Perry and new signing Niamh O’Dowd, who are set for an absorbing battle for the green No 1 jersey.
Ballinamallard’s Barrett may have been disappointed not to benefit from Haney’s injury misfortune with inclusion in the World Cup squad, Ireland instead turning to Perry, who met the eligibility requirements through ancestry and a sufficient stand-down period.
Former Exeter Chiefs great Gareth Steenson from Armagh’s coaching role in this Irish set-up has been broadened
The imposing prospect has carried powerfully for both Irish sides in the Celtic Challenge over the past couple of seasons and has started the current campaign strongly with Wolfhounds after returning from Clovers.
Still a relatively recent convert from No 8, Barrett’s scrummaging remains a work in progress but the Ireland Under 20s Player of the Tournament at the 2024 Six Nations Summer Series in Italy is well worth investing in.
She was unlucky not to feature in the pre-World Cup camps as Ireland went with an unusually small cohort of props over the summer but she is rightly there now along with fellow young Ulsterwoman McGrath and the legendary Linda Djougang.
The uncapped Beth Buttimer, who was at the World Cup, and recalled Daley are vying for the role of third choice hooker behind the top pair of Jones and hugely-experienced campaigner Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald of Exeter Chiefs.
Buttimer benefited from Delaney’s injury by being included in Ireland’s World Cup squad but she didn’t make the matchday 23 for any of the four fixtures at the tournament as Bemand stuck with his established big two.
The Tipperary woman, whose mother Suzanne is originally from Carrickfergus, faces a real fight from the Tralee-born Daley, who missed last season due to a serious knee injury having also lost her IRFU contract.
But the 24-year-old, who was one of Ireland’s three travelling reserves on matchdays throughout the 2024 Six Nations and can play across the back row as well as her newer role of hooker, has bounced back well from adversity.
She was appointed Ulster skipper ahead of this season’s interpros and has worn the No 2 jersey for Wolfhounds in each of their first three fixtures in the current Celtic Challenge, scoring two tries and switching to the back row in both outings so far this month.
There is a possibility Moloney-MacDonald could call time on her international career after this year’s Six Nations, during which she is set to reach the milestone of 50 caps, so there is every incentive for Buttimer, Daley and Delaney when fit to keep pushing their claims.
In contrast to Daley’s deserved recall, unfortunately there is no place in this training squad for her Munster captaincy counterpart and Blackrock clubmate Maeve Og O’Leary, who has had a good season so far.
Like Daley, loose forward O’Leary was converted to hooker the season before last, but has been blighted by injury and the exuberant Tipperary woman was another to lose her IRFU contract some 18 months ago.
But she captained Munster to the interpro title last August, got a good run of games under her belt for Blackrock in the AIL, scoring tries on a regular basis, and started the first three Celtic Challenge games for her new Wolfhounds team.
Especially in the absence of fellow openside options McMahon and Boles, O’Leary’s absence seems surprising, but at least the 25-year-old is really enjoying her rugby and she may yet force her way into the mix for the Six Nations.
O’Leary hasn’t featured in the Championship since being withdrawn at half-time of that disastrous opening game of the 2023 campaign in which Ireland were emphatically whitewashed so has been waiting a long time for another chance to prove her worth.
With the fit-again Wall replacing the retired Corri-Fallon compared to the World Cup squad, Ireland continue to have a strong slate of four locks including Sam Monaghan who will lead the green wave on her own this spring in regular co-captain McMahon’s enforced absence.
Ruth Campbell became a regular in the engineroom last season while adopted Ulsterwoman Tuite has been one of Ireland’s most improved players over the past couple of years and showed her adaptability by featuring at blindside flanker during the World Cup.
If Ireland’s first-choice back five of the scrum this spring proves to be Monaghan, Wall, Hogan, King and Wafer, Tuite’s versatility should make her a banker for a bench berth and give Bemand the flexibility to pick either Campbell or Moore as his other replacement.
There are four uncapped players among the 15 backs called up by Bemand for this training camp including hot prospects Robyn O’Connor and Caitriona Finn, Munster three-quarter Alana McInerney and English-based fullback Niamh Gallagher.
Dorothy Wall is back in the Ireland squad after recovering from the achilles rupture suffered in Edinburgh last April
Teenage outhalf Finn had already looked well-placed to be fellow left-footer Dannah O’Brien’s understudy for this spring’s Six Nations even before Fowley announced her international retirement.
Included in Bemand’s squad for the WXV1 tournament in Vancouver in the autumn of 2024, Finn picked up three Player of the Match awards in four games last August as Munster won the interpro title and is currently steering the ship for Clovers.
In Scuffil-McCabe’s absence, the only two scrumhalves named are Aoibheann Reilly, who has been brilliant so far for her new Wolfhounds team, and Emily Lane who has captained Clovers in the first three rounds of the Celtic Challenge.
Ireland look wonderfully strong at centre, where their World Cup squad quartet are all listed again including Player of the Year Aoife Dalton, the very established duo of Eve Higgins and Enya Breen, and Nancy McGillivray who defected from England last summer.
New Wolfhounds skipper Dalton and Higgins have become one of the world’s best centre pairings, while Breen twice captained Ireland at the WXV1 tournament and McGillivray is benefiting from playing alongside superb Canadian captain Alex Tessier for Exeter Chiefs.
Costigan’s absence created a wing vacancy where her World Cup colleagues Beibhinn Parsons and Anna McGann are joined by McInerney, top try-scorer in last season’s interpros, and Olympian Vicky Elmes-Kinlan.
Elmes-Kinlan started Ireland’s first and final matches of last season, against Australia and Scotland respectively, but ultimately missed out on World Cup squad selection as did fellow Wicklow woman Katie Corrigan.
Scorer of a try in each of Ireland’s three home matches in the 2024 Six Nations aged just 18 on the back of a dozen touchdowns in five Celtic Challenge games for Wolfhounds, Corrigan appears to have fallen out of favour in more recent times.
She was behind Elmes-Kinlan and arguably Amy Larn in the pecking order ahead of the World Cup and has yet to feature for Wolfhounds in their current Celtic Challenge campaign, playing for Old Belvedere last weekend in the AIL instead.
Still just 20, Corrigan can come again but faces a significant fight for the wide berths at Wolfhounds with not just Elmes-Kinlan, Larn and the versatile O’Connor but also Blackrock’s prolific finisher Maggie Boylan and former Armagh gaelic footballer Niamh Marley.
Marley was the only Ulster back with even an outside chance of making this Ireland training squad, though that seemed like quite a long shot, and neither is there a recall for Vicky Irwin of Sale Sharks who actually comes from the same county Armagh village, Hamiltonsbawn.
The writing may have been on the wall for Stacey Flood’s fullback understudy Deely when she didn’t get any game-time at the World Cup and the Ballinasloe woman isn’t among the three fullbacks brought into camp this week.
Sparkling prospect O’Connor is an exciting inclusion having picked up Player of the Match on her Wolfhounds debut just before Christmas and scored a try when deployed on the wing next time out against Clovers.
Although just turned 19 then, the little Wexford firecracker was called up to Bemand’s training squad at the start of September 2024 having caught the eye in the interpros for Leinster but then spent the rest of last season playing World Series sevens.
That effectively meant she wasn’t in World Cup contention but, if Ireland were naming a matchday squad here and now from this training group of 37, O’Connor would seem odds on for the No 23 jersey, with McGann promoted to the starting team in place of Costigan.
Gallagher looks like a real surprise pick ahead of Deely and Aoife Corey, who wore the No 15 jersey in the final fixture of last spring’s Six Nations, but it must be noted that she did start at fullback for Ireland Under 20s last summer with O’Connor shunted to the wing.
That said, assuming she was available, newly-qualified teacher Corey seems hard done by after three years of consistently strong performances for Munster, UL Bohs and Clovers, including in their recent Celtic Challenge clash with Wolfhounds.
Interpro champions Munster have just six representatives in this squad of 37, only one more than strugglers Ulster who were whitewashed yet again. Connacht also have five and, as in the Ireland men’s set-up, Leinster lead the way with 10 players.
There are 11 English-based players included, with the remainder evenly split between Wolfhounds and Clovers, who have 13 each. All of the 24 home-based players except Clohessy and the Ulster trio of Daley, Barrett and McLean have full-time IRFU contracts.
That means 15 players from the IRFU’s high-performance programme are not part of this week’s training group of 37, including Megan Burns, Kathy Baker, Kate Farrell-McCabe, Lucinda Kinghan, Clare Gorman and Ellen Boylan who would be seen as mainly sevens.
Ireland Under 20s captain for the last two summers Jane Neill and young flyer Hannah Clarke would likely have been included but for long-term injury as might the latter’s fellow uncapped winger Chisom Ugwueru.
World Cup squad member Kiripati has yet to feature for Clovers in this season’s Celtic Challenge, Corrigan and Larn are notable omissions and the inclusion of only two scrumhalves scuppered Katie Whelan’s hopes of benefiting from Scuffil-McCabe’s absence.
The other two IRFU-contracted players not involved in this training camp are Costigan and Munster centre Lucia Linn, while last season’s Irish rugby bolter Alma Atagamen hasn’t been called up this time.
The young Balbriggan giant hasn’t featured for Wolfhounds in their first three Celtic Challenge games after being a regular starter for the champions last season but, having just turned 20, she still should have a bright future ahead of her.
Faith Oviawe’s athleticism is arguably a double-edged sword when it comes to assessing her forward play in the cold light of day and her omission isn’t surprising really but, presumably, she remains a talented player of interest along with outhalf Kate Flannery.
One’s hope ahead of this season was that internationals Leah Tarpey and Natasja Behan would bounce back into Ireland contention but injury kept them out of the interpros for Leinster and neither is in the Wolfhounds squad for the Celtic Challenge.
However, thanks to the improved performance pathway and the likes of the Six Nations Summer Series – for national Under 20 teams – and Celtic Challenge providing valuable opportunities to expose promising players, Ireland’s depth chart looks in decent shape.
When Bemand became Ireland head coach, he talked about wanting to build a broader base with at least three contenders for each position, so it is encouraging that this piece has name-checked more than 60 players with credible claims to at least be on the radar.
Some positions are better stocked than others, but Ireland are a revitalised force at international level under Bemand, with heightened expectations, though a Six Nations opener against world champions England at Twickenham on April 11 is a sobering prospect.
There are already over 50,000 tickets sold for the opening game of a campaign which concludes for Ireland with that historic first standalone women’s match in the Aviva Stadium against Scotland in mid-May.
IRELAND (training squad): (backs): Stacey Flood (Railway Union/Leinster), Niamh Gallagher (Ealing Trailfinders), Robyn O’Connor (Old Belvedere/Leinster), Beibhinn Parsons (Blackrock/Connacht), Vicky Elmes-Kinlan (Wicklow/Leinster), Alana McInerney (UL Bohs/Munster), Anna McGann (Railway Union/Connacht), Nancy McGillivray (Exeter Chiefs), Aoife Dalton (Old Belvedere/Leinster), Eve Higgins (Railway Union/Leinster), Enya Breen (Blackrock/Munster), Caitriona Finn (UL Bohs/Munster), Dannah O’Brien (Old Belvedere/Leinster), Aoibheann Reilly (Blackrock/Connacht), Emily Lane (Blackrock/Leinster); (forwards): Niamh O’Dowd (Gloucester Hartpury), Cara McLean (Queen’s/Ulster), Ellena Perry (Gloucester Hartpury), Sadhbh McGrath (Cooke/Ulster), Linda Djougang (Old Belvedere/Leinster), Sophie Barrett (Enniskillen/Cooke/Ulster) Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald (Exeter Chiefs), Neve Jones (Gloucester Hartpury), Beth Buttimer (UL Bohs/Munster), India Daley (Enniskillen/Blackrock/Ulster), Ruth Campbell (Old Belvedere/Leinster), Sam Monaghan (Gloucester Hartpury), Fiona Tuite (Old Belvedere/Ulster), Dorothy Wall (Exeter Chiefs), Jane Clohessy (UL Bohs/Munster), Grace Moore (Ealing Trailfinders), Brittany Hogan (Sale Sharks), Rosie Searle (Navan/Leinster) Jemima Adams-Verling (Creggs/Galwegians/Connacht), Aoife Wafer (Harlequins), Ailish Quinn (Ballina/Connacht), Erin King (Old Belvedere/Leinster).
Young Clovers No 8 Jemima Adams-Verling is among the newcomers called up for Ireland’s training camp this week
