GUINNESS WOMEN’S SIX NATIONS: ITALY v IRELAND, Parma (3.00pm BST) Live on Virgin Media One and BBC Two Northern Ireland
BY RICHARD BULLICK
IT was a whirlwind week for Neve Jones, with another Premiership Women’s Rugby title win with Gloucester Hartpury being followed by Ireland’s Six Nations opener against France in Belfast just six days later, but that schedule didn’t bother the all-action hooker.
Having put in a huge shift for Gloucester in their victory over Saracens, it was straight into Ireland camp for Ulsterwoman Neve and, although the French fixture ultimately ended in frustration, there were many positives for Scott Bemand’s side to take from a 27-15 defeat.
One of those was Ireland’s lineout, often an achilles heel in the past couple of years, which proved a platform for all three tries including Jones getting the middle touchdown herself on an afternoon when the hosts lost only one out of 19 on their own throw.
There was plenty of variation out of touch, with Jones confidently finding her jumper at the tail on a number of occasions in a match where she also had official leadership responsibility for the first time in a green jersey.
With squad skipper Edel McMahon not starting, Amee-Leigh Murphy-Crowe (now Costigan) took on the mantle of matchday captain, but Jones was designated as vice-captain to have someone closer to the action than the wing with authority to liaise with the referee.
“It worked grand. Leigh is a quality player and we get on really well off the pitch,” affirmed Jones, who is still relatively young at 26 but has 31 caps to her name and is something of a rallying force for Ireland and firm fan favourite thanks to her crunching hits and turnovers.
As someone who metaphorically punches above her weight and relishes the physical combat despite her lack of size, Jones tends to be at or near the top of Ireland’s tackle chart for any given game with few attempts missed.
The irrepressible Ballymena native first came to our attention captaining Ulster to a fantastic title triumph in the inaugural Under 18 interpro series back in the autumn of 2016 and, now an experienced international, the pint-sized hooker is an influential figure for Ireland.
She has started 25 of Ireland’s last 26 Tests – the exception being the middle game against Canada at WXV1 last autumn – stretching back to the tail end of 2021 and, despite her herculean efforts for Gloucester, Jones was fighting fit for the start of the Six Nations.
With Moloney just getting back from a calf injury which ruled her out of the end of the PWR season for Exeter Chiefs, Ireland supporters watching would have been relieved to see Jones coming through the English showpiece unscathed in terms of obvious injury.
However, having been on the field for all but the final few minutes of a high-intensity tussle, she had undoubtedly emptied the tank physically, never mind the mental energy expended too and then dealing with the emotion which comes with winning or losing such a big game.
Either way though, Jones was going to have to move on quickly with such an important match for her country looming large on the horizon and, at this stage, she’s used to riding the roller-coaster and not dwelling long on highs or lows. Such is life in professional sport.
“I think at the end of the day, it’s rugby. You have four white lines and 80 minutes of rugby,” she reflected when asked by Local Women Sport about the mental and physical challenge of going straight into a Six Nations campaign so quickly after the climax of the PWR.
“The girls and coaches and management have been great whenever I’ve come back into the Ireland environment to manage me and incorporate me. We’re used to playing rugby week in, week out so the physical side isn’t an issue as such.
“It’s just a mindset thing, switching from one team to the other. Winning silverware with Gloucester Hartpury was very satisfying obviously – I really enjoyed the Prem season and it was a brilliant way to finish – but now we’re in camp it’s all about the green jersey.”
A key cog in the Gloucester Hartpury pack, especially this season with her Welsh namesake Kelsey Jones out injured, Jones scored her ninth try of the campaign in the PWR final as the reigning champions came from 14 points down to win 34-19.
She made over 200 tackles for the team nicknamed The Circus in the season just ended, with a completion rate of 99 percent, and her tally of 17 dominant tackles was the second best in the competition despite the vertically-challenged Jones just being 5’2”.
It has been a similar story in the green jersey over recent years where Jones has been relentless, whether defiantly fighting against the tide during that tough whitewash in the 2023 Six Nations or helping drive Ireland’s renaissance over the past 12 months.
The IRFU website reports that, in the last three Six Nations tournaments, Jones had the ‘most work-rate actions per 80 minutes’ of any Irish player and the third highest overall across all the competing countries.
With her high tackle-count a strength, Jones made the official Team of the Six Nations for both 2022 and 2024 despite Ireland’s lineout not always functioning to the highest standards, albeit those struggles seldom lie solely at the hooker’s door.
By the same token, Jones doesn’t seek to claim special credit for Ireland’s excellent return in that facet of the game against France, but she was understandably delighted with how well the lineouts went in that Belfast fixture.
Lining out at her provincial headquarters is special for Jones, who previously played her club rugby round the corner at Malone, and she picked up the Player of the Match award when Ireland beat Scotland at Ravenhill in the final game of the 2022 Six Nations.
She started too in the victories over both Scotland and Australia in Belfast last year so this past weekend was the first time she has experienced defeat there in the green jersey, albeit the match brought her 12th international try.
“I actually can’t take much credit for the try. There were loads of strong women in front of me and they just threw me over the line,” insisted Neve when she sat down with the media on Thursday ahead of this Sunday’s match against Italy in Parma.
Ireland’s lineout improvement and her love of tackling took up much of the conversation and, like several team-mates, Jones is full of praise for the impact of forwards coach Alex Codling on the team’s set-piece since he took up post at the start of this season.
“The lineout was a huge success last weekend. I just think Codders coming in, he has done a fantastic job with us. There’s a full buy-in with all of the girls. We push each other and work really hard when we are training together.
“It’s definitely something we have worked on and want to have as a strength of ours, and will continue to do so as the weeks go on,” enthused Neve, in relation to an aspect of Ireland’s game which looks like morphing from a perennial problem into a potent weapon.
Helped by brilliantly innovative variation, Ireland scored two tries off lineouts in last autumn’s famous upset of world champions New Zealand and Aoife Wafer’s first touchdown against France also came from a well-worked routine off one of Erin King’s 10 takes.
The 95 percent return on Ireland’s throw was a huge improvement on the 61 percent in last season’s Six Nations and, on the opening weekend of this year’s competition was second only to England’s perfect 13 from 13 in their victory over Italy.
The hooker’s job at lineout time is often characterised as ‘throwing darts’ and it requires exceptional precision, especially considering the number of variables and multiple moving parts in the equation including disguising the target and lifting the jumper.
As with a kick at goal, the game essentially stops for the lineout and all eyes are on the hooker about to execute their skill under pressure a few seconds after being at the coalface of physical combat with their heart pounding.
Ulsterman Rory Best has spoken previously about that contrast, while one of Ireland’s current hooker Ronan Kelleher likened it to having to step out of a round in a boxing ring to hit a golf shot. While insisting she knows nothing about golf, Jones accepts the analogy.
“Codders has done some great work with myself and the other hookers to improve our throw and be confident in that so I think a lot of credit to him. He has put time and work into us and put us in contact with people in the clubs to grow our strength away from here,” she says.
“I think it’s mainly the confidence. He’s tweaked a few (technical) things here and there but nothing huge, because every hooker is different and throws differently so he doesn’t want to change too much.
“Whatever your technique is, it’s about being able to replicate consistently and execute under pressure. He just wants to instil that we’ve got it in the tank and just do it when it comes to the weekend.”
While lineouts are essentially ecosystems with multiple, inter-dependent component parts, fairly or otherwise the hooker inevitably tends to be in the firing line for flak first when things go wrong.
Whoever throws the ball in often doesn’t deserve the brickbats metaphorically flung at them so, by the same token, the pragmatic Jones isn’t inclined to catch the bouquets and polish her halo while wallowing in what was a good day at the office for the Irish lineout.
She’s also under no illusions about how superficial, fickle and absolutist some media and elements of the public can be, or the small margins between being the proclaimed hero and perceived villain, whereas an elite professional player must try to keep on an even keel.
There’s no doubt that that Jones goes back to Parma this weekend with Ireland’s lineout in much better shape than for that fateful tournament there in the autumn of 2021 when Adam Griggs’ side failed to qualify for the following year’s World Cup.
They beat hosts Italy on that occasion and it was a subsequent loss to Scotland which sealed Ireland’s fate but the earlier 8-7 defeat against Spain in the opener proved very costly for the team in green.
It felt like a then youthful Enya Breen was asked to take a penalty from further out than was comfortable because of an understandable reluctance to trust the lineout by going to the corner. The kick wasn’t successful and Ireland lost a game they had been expected to win.
While Ireland forwards coach Codling is cited as a major factor in one important aspect of Jones’ game, she cites the lifelong influence of her dad Dave as being inextricably linked to her love of tackling and effective breakdown work.
Herself and the similarly-proportioned outside centre Aoife Dalton are compact menaces in that facet for Ireland with both using their low centre of gravity and physical fearlessness to good effect in getting in over the ball and winning turnovers as well as any back row forward.
It was groundhog day at the IRFU’s High Performance Centre on Thursday as, like last year in a similar session, Jones was asked about being a tackle machine and her love of defending. Then, like now, she shrugged and gave the same reply – “It’s just a bit of craic!
“It kind of comes naturally. I guess being a middle child of three siblings that are close in age, maybe something like that had a bearing on it. Dad had us playing from the age of two or three in the living room, tackling each other!” reveals Neve with a grin.
Brummie-born Dave Jones played rugby union in the back row and rugby league as a hooker so had a good understanding of the contact area and its importance, which rubbed off on Neve from a very young age as he taught her the rugby basics.
“I worked a lot with my dad growing up. I played mini-rugby (with the boys at Ballymena RFC) from age six or seven. Being the smallest on the pitch my dad was like, ‘we’ll work on the tackle!’ He’s a huge supporter of mine and I’m really thankful for everything he’s done.
“He still always sends me a little spiel after a game saying ‘this was good, well done on this, work a bit on this’, a synopsis of my game. How much heed I take depends on what it says, I’ll leave it at that!”, she chuckles, before adding: “But he has got a good rugby IQ.”
While still appreciating parental advice, Neve now has an assured air of senior pro status in this largely youthful Ireland squad and, as the last player up for media duty on Thursday, she was asked about Aoibheann Reilly and Dalton who had already done their bit before her.
Just back from a cruciate rupture, dainty scrumhalf Reilly is 24 but sounds unfeasibly young while the very demure, understated Dalton’s demeanour and tender age of 21 belies a ferocious competitor who this weekend will make her 17th start in Ireland’s last 21 Tests.
“Aoibheann and Aoife are both quality players and everyone takes on board what they have to say – we really respect their voices,” said Jones of two women who like herself face the sort of fierce competition for places which can only help push standards still higher.
Very experienced campaigner Moloney’s return to the fold for the Wales game last April after a painful period in exile means Ireland have two outstanding hookers to share the role at international level, though Jones has hung onto the starting spot on a regular basis so far.
Compared to the Six Nations two years ago when Jones generally remained on the field until Exeter’s Clara Nielson took over for the final few minutes, Ireland are no longer over-reliant on the Ulsterwoman and decent depth is developing beyond the big two.
Leinster’s Sarah Delaney was capped aged just 18 as understudy to Jones at the WXV3 tournament in autumn 2023 but her recent injury issues have opened the door to emerging Munster firebrand Beth Buttimer, still just 19, to make this Six Nations squad.
Young Ulsterwoman Maebh Clenaghan started all 10 Celtic Challenge games for Wolfhounds this season, shadowed throughout by Leinster rookie Kellie Burke, while Connacht’s Emily Gavin was back-up to Buttimer in the Clovers set-up.
Proactive attempts were made to convert excellent loose forwards Maeve Og O’Leary and Ulster’s India Daley from the back row to hooker last season, though both have had injury misfortune since and are no longer contracted by the IRFU.
Moloney’s former rival Leah Lyons is now retired and was an assistant coach with Clovers this season while three other capped players – Emma Hooban, Jess Keating and Victoria Dabanovich-O’Mahony – are no longer in the mix, yet Ireland appear well-stocked.
Indeed, with World Cup squad spots limited, there’s probably a fair chance that dynamic Munsterwoman Deirbhile Nic a Bhaird could end up as Ireland’s notional third hooker for this year’s tournament while doubling up as one of a quality slate of loose forwards.
All the aspiring contenders will struggle to get a look-in though while Jones and Moloney keep excelling, and the ever-present, relentless Neve is something of a physical phenomenon as someone who came across her in another sport can testity.
Long-standing gaelic games broadcaster Jerome Quinn, currently doing a lot of work with the LGFA as videographer and match commentator, managed Jones when she turned up to try her hand at gaelic football for the newly-formed East Belfast club a few years ago.
“It was during the pandemic period and Neve was among a number of fresh faces to join East Belfast GAA. She took to the sport straight away, with her fitness, strength and attitude,” Jerome told Local Women Sport on Friday.
“Different sport maybe, but she was also a superb tackler in the gaelic too, closing down opponents with ease and dispossessing them, especially defenders trying to come out with the ball. She enjoyed getting to grips with it and was fantastic.
“We went to Warrenpoint for a double challenge, two games back-to-back. I said to her after the first that she could play the second too if she wanted and she didn’t hesitate. It was no bother to her and, honestly, she deserved Player of the Match in both of those games.”
Little wonder then that Duracell Jones didn’t turn up physically fatigued for Ireland duty after that pulsating, sapping Premiership final – and adapting to the different environment and systems was no problem either as she’s so familiar with this Irish set-up.
With Moloney such a top-class alternative, Jones could come off after 55 minutes whereas starting props Niamh O’Dowd and Linda Djougang were there until near the end but, between them, the trio managed 28 carries for 92 metres and made 31 successful tackles.
That triumvirate will have an important part to play at Stadio Lanfranchi in Parma on Sunday (3.00pm, BBC) as Ireland seek a first away win in the Six Nations since 2021 against an Italian team aiming for a third victory in a row over the women in green.
Ballymena native Neve Jones representing Ireland at this month’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations launch in London
