Armagh’s Emily Druse in action during last month’s Ulster final in a packed Clones (Pic: Colin Molloy)
BY RICHARD BULLICK
IRREPRESSIBLE livewire Emily Druse is set to make her 29th start in Armagh’s last 30 matches this Saturday when the Orchard outfit take on a Kildare side which has lost her fellow young speedster Amy Larn to rugby.
Having drawn with Meath in Navan in their opening game, Armagh go into this Athletic Grounds showdown (2pm, TG4 Youtube) knowing a win would clinch top place in Group Three and home advantage in next month’s All Ireland Senior Championship quarter-finals.
After her superb performances in last month’s Ulster final – earning inclusion in Gaelic Life’s cross-code Team of the Week – and against the Royals, when singled out for special praise by boss Darnell Parkinson, Druse is sure to be in the run-on line-up for a 15th game in a row.
In fact, the National League game away to Mayo on St Patrick’s Day last year is the only Armagh match Druse – who turned 22 at the end of last month – hasn’t started since the 2023 NFL Division Two final in Croke Park when she was still a teenager.
She scored her first Armagh goal against this weekend’s opponents in the NFL fixture in Silverbridge earlier this season, having run almost the length of the field to set up the Orchard’s only other major on the day for Niamh Henderson.
Newly-promoted Kildare’s team that afternoon featured Druse’s successor as Queen’s University captain Mia Doherty but the Lilywhites were without the services of flyer Larn and that is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future as she focuses on rugby.
Midfielder Larn captained Kildare Minors to a Leinster A title triumph in 2022 and broke into the county’s senior side the following season, but she hasn’t lined out in white since the summer before last.
The Athy youngster, who played her gaelic football for Castlemitchell, missed Kildare’s 2023 All Ireland Intermediate decider victory over Clare after breaking her wrist in her first international rugby sevens tournament for Ireland in Hamburg the previous month.
But, if rugby robbed rising star Larn of a big occasion in Croke Park in county colours, it more than made up for it last summer as she got to feature in the Paris Olympics just a few weeks after turning 20 having been selected ahead of expensive flop Vikki Wall.
Although Ulsterwoman Claire Boles and Larn were just brought to the Games as travelling reserves, injuries to Irish skipper Lucy Mulhall and Beibhinn Parsons gave them the opportunity to tog out in front of a 66,000 crowd in the Stade de France.
That was an incredibly memorable experience for Larn, who has since made an impression in the XVs form of the sport, starting nine out of 10 matches for Wolfhounds this past season as they retained the Celtic Challenge title.
The young winger showed her impressive pace with a try a few minutes into her debut against Clovers in Donnybrook three days before last Christmas, showing the opposition a clean pair of heels after being released by the established stars inside her.
That all-international axis of Dannah O’Brien, Eve Higgins, Aoife Dalton and Stacey Flood again combined brilliantly to give her a more straightforward finish away to Brython Thunder but Larn did her own work with a superb solo score in the final fixture against Edinburgh.
Now playing fullback in the injured Flood’s absence, Larn celebrated her call-up to Ireland’s Six Nations training squad by scorching home untouched after fielding an opposition kick 20 metres inside her own half as Wolfhounds wrapped up the title in style with a 102-0 rout.
Armagh’s Emily Druse showing her pace in a superb performance away to Meath last time out (Pic: Colin Molloy)
One of a number of promising wingers who kept fit-again former Armagh gaelic footballer Niamh Marley out of the Wolfhounds set-up this past season, the fleet-footed Larn hasn’t made Ireland’s World Cup preparation squad but is still set for a busy summer with rugby.
Last weekend the Irish sevens squad was in Makarska, Croatia for the opening leg of the Rugby Europe Championship Series, with a second competition in Hamburg, Germany at the end of the month as they seek to bounce back from World Series relegation.
Larn celebrates her 21st birthday in the middle of next month but could still feature for Ireland Under 20s in the Six Nations Women’s Summer Series, a XVs development tournament which takes place in Wales from July 5-17.
Undaunted by that broken wrist on her first sevens outing for Ireland, Larn was handed her World Series debut in Singapore the following season and made the Olympics cut after playing in the two Rugby Europe events last summer.
Given her speed and tenacity, one can readily envisage Druse having made it to Paris 2024 had she been in the IRFU’s high-performance programme for the previous 12 months, but sticking with Armagh gaelic football has proved a rewarding journey for Emily.
She has graced Croke Park three times now, most notably when starting in last year’s historic NFL Division One final victory over Kerry, and picked up two Ulster Senior Championship medals having lost her first showpiece on the day of her 20th birthday.
Like Larn, Druse was an age group county captain, leading Armagh Under 14s to the All Ireland B final in 2017, and both shone in extra-curricular activities with Emily a talented musician, singer and actress while Amy reached a junior All Ireland bake-off final!
Amy Larn was part of Team Ireland at last summer’s Paris Olympics just after turning 20
But whereas Larn had taken up rugby aged just 10 at Athy RFC – going on to win a XVs Under 18 interpro title with Leinster and bronze with Ireland at the Rugby Europe U18 Sevens Championship in Prague – Druse didn’t have early exposure to the oval ball code.
Other counties have lost top potential ladies gaelic talent to rugby – for example, this writer’s first sighting of future Ireland outhalf Dannah O’Brien was when she scored eight points for Carlow against Antrim in the 2021 All Ireland Junior semi-final aged just 17.
Newly-crowned Ireland Player of the Year Aoife Dalton captained her school to the All Ireland Under 16 B title the same weekend Druse won the A final with St Catherine’s College and comes from a strong gaelic footballing family yet Offaly won’t have her anytime soon.
Young girls in places like Clare, Tipperary, Wexford and Wicklow will now be dreaming of playing representative rugby rather than county football, but at this stage Armagh remains largely untouched by the allure of other codes.
The Orchard’s ladies gaelic county team is one of the very best in Ireland whereas injury cruelly cut down Druse’s Armagh Harps clubmate Leah McGoldrick before the young Ulster star – who would have been tipped to make this year’s World Cup – reached her prime.
Likewise, latecomer Marley might have emerged as a local poster girl for rugby had things worked out differently for the Hamiltonsbawn sportswoman, but her chances of making the Paris Olympics were arguably undermined by her ongoing commitment to Armagh gaelic.
Continuing to line out for Armagh two summers ago while an Irish sevens triallist may have cost Marley selection for that very Euro event in Hamburg which Larn made her debut at, and last January’s cruciate rupture then hit her hopes of breaking into the XVs set-up.
Coincidentally, the Armagh native who seems most likely to wear the green jersey at adult level in the foreseeable future is Maebh Clenaghan whose mum went to school with Druse’s mum, though her family now live in the north west.
Both Druse and Clenaghan are currently studying Medicine at Queen’s and, although the former has been besieged with her fourth year exams over the past few weeks, she was still typically full of beans in that great display against Meath last time out.
Emily Druse on the attack for Armagh during this season’s National League final at Croke Park
Dual star Amy Larn hasn’t lined out for Kildare since summer 2023 due to rugby commitments
Emily Druse in Clones last May after winning her first Ulster Senior Championship with Armagh
Kildare Minors captain Amy Larn (right) and her Meath counterpart at the 2022 Leinster A final launch
Emily Druse signs an autograph for a young Armagh fan after last year’s All Ireland quarter-final victory
