Double try-scorer Erin King after Ireland’s famous victory over world champions New Zealand at WXV1
BY RICHARD BULLICK
IRELAND’S dynamic new loose forward Erin King just comes across as an exuberant big bundle of energy and enthusiasm and the stats from the first two rounds of the Guinness Six Nations certainly back up that impression.
The young Wicklow woman tops the chart for most attacking ruck arrivals with 60 – next best is England captain Zoe Aldcroft’s 48 – and she also leads the way when it comes to most defensive ruck arrivals with 19.
Her 15 lineout takes are second only to Aldcroft’s 16 – nobody else across the six sides has more than 11 – and the Sydney-born King is fourth for carries in the Championship so far, a list headed by her Ireland back row colleague Aoife Wafer.
King won 10 Ireland lineouts on her Six Nations debut against France at Ravenhill, also stealing one opposition throw, and then made a multi-faceted contribution in Parma as Ireland recorded their first away win in the competition since 2021 in emphatic fashion.
She supplemented her 13 carries and 13 tackles with winning a turnover, beating two defenders, throwing an offload and claiming five lineouts on an afternoon when she was typically full of beans from start to finish.
From the first Italian kick-off, Ireland skipper Edel McMahon carried into contact, Dannah O’Brien booted long, Aoife Dalton came up to scythe down the opposition carrier and King was straight in over the ball to win a penalty for Scott Bemand’s side.
One of King’s fellow 21-year-olds, Dalton, scored Ireland’s first try little more than a minute later with another, O’Brien, kicking an excellent touchline conversion, and the foundations had been laid for Erin’s maiden Six Nations victory.
When winger Anna McGann raced clear to complete her hat-trick with the clock red at the end, the first team-mate to arrive was King, her huge grin highlighted by that gumshield gleaming white against the backdrop of a well-tanned face filled with joy.
It’s far from the first time in recent months that we’ve seen that big, beaming smile from the charismatic King, who ended a truly remarkable 2024 as World Rugby’s Breakthrough Player of the Year for Women’s XVs.
After picking up her World Rugby gong at a Sunday night ceremony in Monaco, King flew on to Dubai the next day to join up with her Irish sevens side as they prepared for the opening tournament of this season’s World Series the following weekend.
Jetting between those glamorous locations marked a return to full-on rugby business for King, who had been enjoying the red-carpet circuit in the preceding weeks, with the Team Ireland Olympics Ball being followed by the Rugby Writers of Ireland Awards banquet.
She scored tries in the first two group games against Fiji and China and started all five matches at the Dubai tournament, where Ireland ended up a respectable sixth, before heading straight on to Cape Town for the next competition.
From South Africa, it was straight home to another round of media appearances, including a very engaging chat on Tommy Bowe’s Virgin Media morning programme by Erin, who had dramatically come of age as a rising star of the sport either side of turning 21 in late October.
King’s incredible year began by helping Ireland win World Series gold for the first time in their history, courtesy of upsetting hosts Australia in the final of the Perth tournament last January, and the highlights just kept on coming.
A medal proved beyond Ireland’s women on their historic Olympics debut in Paris this summer but they played in front of huge crowds well in excess of 60,000 and that iconic clip of King’s herculean lift of team-mate Emily Lane above her head went viral in a big way.
This explosive athlete had also caught the eye of Ireland XVs head coach Bemand and she was called up to his squad for the autumn internationals despite being very much a sevens specialist.
While King had accumulated an astonishing century of Irish sevens caps before the Olympics at the tender age of 20, her only three games of XVs as an adult had come for Old Belvedere in the All Ireland League more than two years earlier.
But Bemand picked her on the bench for the Test against Australia which officially launched the IRFU’s 150th anniversary celebrations and King really impressed in a dynamic cameo as the girls in green thrashed a Wallaroos side ranked fifth in the world 36-10.
She’d undoubtedly done enough in that Belfast fixture to be on the flight which left for Canada the following Friday and scored two tries off the bench as Ireland pulled off a famous upset of world champions New Zealand on their WXV1 debut in Vancouver.
King’s second touchdown was followed by O’Brien’s final minute conversion off an upright as Ireland won 29-27 against the Black Ferns and she got her first start in the green jersey six days later when skipper McMahon missed the Canadian clash due to injury.
Ireland lost to the hosts but went on to secure a superb runners-up place in the tournament by defeating dangerous USA in their final fixture, with the quick-thinking King scoring another try in a Player of the Match performance.
Along with fellow flanker Wafer, newcomer King made the BBC’s Team of the Tournament and the Aussie-born Blessington woman was shortlisted subsequently for that World Rugby Breakthrough Award for Women’s XVs.
King became the first Irishwoman to win an individual World Rugby award when chosen by the adjudication panel ahead of England’s Maddie Feaunati, Australia’s Caitlyn Halse and her own namesake Hannah King of New Zealand.
“It’s been a whirlwind from the Olympics and then coming into such a good XVs squad. I was so lucky with how they welcomed me in. I was really nervous because I haven’t played much XVs at senior level but I just kind of took it in my stride,” she said on stage.
“I feel amazing, it’s all happened so quickly and I can’t quite believe it,” admitted King to the BBC after being picked by a panel including Irish women’s rugby royalty Fiona Coghlan along with wider world legends like Victor Matfield, Thierry Dusautoir and Kieran Read.
“It’s hard to put into words what Sunday evening meant to me. I’m very blessed to be part of two programmes that push me every day to be a better player and person. I wouldn’t be anywhere without my team-mates who inspire me on and off the pitch.
“Big thank you to my friends, family and coaches who have contributed so much to this award,” posted King on her own social channels, and she has also reflected at length on her journey to date in various media interviews.
“This is so surreal but it means everything,” King told RTE’s Morning Ireland, adding: “I have been working hard for the last four years, a lot of unseen work, just striving to get better and better.
“I got the opportunity to play with the XVs when they were on the up and they really set me up to succeed. I only had two weeks in camp (before the Australia game) and they guided me and got me ready to go.”
Erin admitted to having had to pinch herself a lot lately, but asserted that there was much more to come from this rapidly improving Irish side, stating: “This is only the start, the country has seen a glimmer of what we can do and the sky is the limit for this team.”
Including on a joint appearance on RTE’s Late Late Show with Paddy Kielty, neither King nor Wafer have shied away from setting ambitious targets and Ireland have begun the Six Nations well by putting it up to France followed by that 54-12 record rout of Italy.
King’s former Leinster Under 18 captain Wafer was also in Monaco, where she had the honour of being named in the women’s World XV, with four Irish representatives – Caelan Doris, Tadhg Beirne, Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe – making the men’s line-up.
Less than a fortnight earlier, Wafer had won the Rugby Writers of Ireland Women’s XVs Player of the Year with the shortlisted King losing out to her new Irish captain Amee-Leigh Murphy-Crowe for the corresponding sevens award.
It was fitting that World Series success should come Down Under, for King was born in Oz to Irish parents, James and Joanne, and the family also lived in Dubai and Doha before moving back to Wicklow, where Erin and her four brothers joined Naas RFC.
She briefly played gaelic football for Wicklow Minors but a girl who was brought to the 2003 Rugby World Cup final when just a month old was always destined to choose the oval ball game and she was fast-tracked into the Irish sevens squad before turning 18.
There was an Under 18 interpro title triumph with Leinster and three outings for her new club Old Belvedere in early 2022 but, because of specialising in sevens, King never got to wear a green jersey on home soil until winning her first XVs cap at Ravenhill in September.
Fittingly that honour came against the land of her birth and, after catching the eye off the bench in Ireland’s impressive victory over Australia, King was put up for media duties and came across very well.
Later described by Dublin-based Evoke magazine as a ‘bright, bubbly bombshell’, King is mature and confident for her age – the early Aussie upbringing perhaps helps – and speaks with clarity, including on television after picking up Player of the Match against USA.
An explosive player with a wonderful physique, phenomenal athlete King brings brutal intensity either side of the ball but off the field she’s engaging, glamorous and girlish with a happy personality and that winsome smile.
A personable young woman with the world at her feet, King has absolute star quality and is marketing gold for Irish rugby but, rather than resting on her laurels, she has been working hard to raise the bar even higher in what is set to be another hugely exciting year.
King spoke purposefully of the scope for further improvement in an interview for the Ireland-Australia men’s match programme last November and her belief that the girls in green can make a big impression at this year’s World Cup, which begins in August.
Despite being so much closer to the French than in the corresponding game last year, there was a frustrating sense of what might have been in the Ireland ranks after feeling they had let another notable scalp slip through their fingers in the recent Six Nations opener.
That annoyance was well articulated by Bemand and McMahon in their post-match interviews but putting King up for media duties afterwards was a positive step as she was able, with customary optimism, to reflect on another new experience personally.
“It was really exciting and, with a crowd of 7000, we definitely felt all the support out there. Obviously we’re coming off that game a little bit frustrated, but I think we can take loads of positives from it,” reflected King following the 27-15 Ravenhill loss.
In some ways, it didn’t seem long since she’d sat behind the same table after her first cap cameo against Australia last September, but Erin acknowledged that the six months since have been something of a whirlwind with so much packed in.
“Personally, since the Australia game, I’ve played a lot more XVs and I think a lot has happened. Last autumn was great but I’m a lot more confident in my game now and the girls around me. We’ve grown so much since then and I’m excited for the rest of the Six Nations.
“It’s my first time to play in it, and there’s definitely a big buzz around the place – it’s all really exciting. It’s a pity we didn’t get the win out there but we’re showing we can compete with some of the best in the world and, going into a World Cup, that’s really positive.
“I think we executed our set-piece well but there were just little errors, like a few dropped balls. Little fixes, little tweaks that we can keep working on. We were great when we had the ball but you need to keep it in order to maintain momentum.
“The defeat definitely hasn’t dented morale for we know how good we can be. There were times we weren’t quite there but there are positives to take as well as work-ons, which is great because we want to keep improving throughout this campaign,” she declared.
“We’ve been working together in camp through the past few weeks and what we’re wanting to do came together in patches but maybe not consistently enough which is a bit frustrating for training has gone really well and we know we can be better over 80 minutes.”
“In the huddle afterwards, we felt the frustration. I think we’d have liked to go and play another 40 minutes! You don’t get that opportunity obviously but there are more matches to come and we don’t want to feel like that again after any of them.
“It’s all about learning, seeing what we can improve, then going into the coming matches with hunger and confidence,” enthused King, who at that stage was looking forward to her first away trip in the Six Nations and new opposition again in terms of her XVs career.
Of course, she’s toured the globe with the Irish sevens squad since being a very young player, but King has been relishing this fresh experience albeit alongside some extremely familiar faces from the World Series.
“It’s an adventure and I guess I’m just going along with it. I was so lucky to be a part of the (WXV1) team out in Canda, where we had some positive results. The culture is amazing and I’m really enjoying it, just going along with everything.
“Hopefully we’ll have a good Six Nations and build into the World Cup really nicely. We have so much togetherness and we’re like a family out there. We all have each other’s back which is lovely.
“For the away games we won’t have the crowd support so that togetherness among ourselves is so important. We’re really tight and always stick together which is so important along with trying to perform to our best and just getting our accuracy a bit better than today.
“From a personal perspective, playing against these different teams for the first time (in XVs) is really exciting. It’s all learning and hopefully every experience helps make me a better player and in turn adds to us as a team.
“Going into this year, we’ve known every game is so important and we want to take so many learnings from each game, and have positives to take from each game, and I guess it’s just about building that belief and that confidence.
“I think we’re going to do things that this Irish team has never done before, hopefully. There’s a lot of hard work ahead but it’s all coming together, training is really good and now we want to produce the performances consistently which can deliver results.”
Erin King won the Player of the Match award against USA on just her second start for Ireland last autumn
The Celtic Challenge has been much maligned in some quarters due to the plethora of one-sided scorelines with the two Irish teams dominating, but starting nine games for Wolfhounds has been very beneficial for relative rookie King’s continuing XVs education.
It was about getting game-time under her belt, becoming more familiar with the nuts-and-bolts of forward play and, having shown impressive progression as the weeks went on, she was an influential figure in Wolfhounds retaining their title.
“I found the Celtic Challenge experience so helpful personally. I went into that Australia game having played very little XVs at adult level, and none for a while, so it’s been great getting that block of regular games with Wolfhounds and making good connections.
“I feel so much confident in the lineouts and the mauls and things like that, and am developing that familiarity. I just want to keep growing and growing and be the best player I can be for the team so anything that helps towards that is good.
“I love jumping in the lineouts now and seeing what we can come up with, and what different things we can do. We saw some tries coming from our lineout today (against France), which was working well, and that’s down to Codders (forwards coach Alex Codling).
“The girls have helped me so much too. I’m so lucky to be among some of the best back-rowers in the world and I think they’re dragging me along. I want to keep pushing myself and set high standards for myself to be one of the best players.
“There’s so much competition in our back row and the squad, I think we just keep pushing each other and helping each other improve. I’m so lucky to have players like Brittany (Hogan) and (Aoife) Wafer alongside me.”
Back-rower Erin King on the rampage for Wolfhounds during their successful Celtic Challenge title defence
Outstanding athlete King’s exciting explosion onto the scene as such an evident talent has given Ireland boss Bemand the sort of positive selection headaches any head coach worth his salt would want.
Wafer, McMahon and Hogan were a formidable first choice back row which started together for those stirring victories over Wales, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand last year, yet King quickly muscled her way into the equation.
After eye-catching cameos against the Wallaroos and Black Ferns, she got the opportunity to start the last two games at WXV1 in the injured McMahon’s absence, picking up that Player of the Match award in the victory over USA.
So far in this Six Nations, King’s inclusion in the team against France came at the expense of inspirational skipper McMahon, and then Hogan was left on the bench initially for the Italian job, breaking her run of 13 consecutive starts in Bemand’s first 13 games in charge.
King has started both matches along with the world-class Wafer but this bright tyro remains rightly respectful towards McMahon and grateful for the selfless support of an invaluable leader who has done so much to hone and nurture the fantastic culture in this Irish set-up.
“Edel has helped me so much. I’m so fortunate to be around such a great person on the pitch and off the pitch. She helps me with anything I need and it’s great to have her to call upon. I’m just so lucky,” exclaims King with another of those sunny smiles.
Taking on England, currently the world’s top team, next weekend will be another first for King along with wearing the green jersey in a Test match at Musgrave Park in Cork, where Ireland can look forward to very vocal support. You know she’ll relish every minute.
Ireland rookie Erin King receives her historic World Rugby Breakthrough Award in Monaco last November
