Ireland turn pro
Funding from the Irish Sports Council has allowed Ireland to contract 19 players to train fulltime as professional sevens players.
Published by Alison Donnelly, October 22nd, 2014
3 minute read
The Irish Sports Council has provided a training award with the programme being administered by the IRFU.
The 19 contracted players are based in Dubli as they prepare for the qualifying road to the 2016 Olympics.
In turning professional Ireland are joining a raft of other nations on the same path including Russia, England, USA, Canada and Australia but it is not yet known if their 7s players will be made available or 15s duty, as is happening in England this season.
The Irish XV team is also still without a coaching set up just three months out from the 6 Nations.The 7s squad includes three of Ireland'sWorld Cup stars - wingers Ashleigh Baxter and Alison Miller and centre Jenny Murphy.
Eleven of the contracted players came through previous IRFU Talent ID (TID) programmes, with a number of girls coming from different sporting backgrounds including football, athletics and hockey.A further screening camp takes place on the weekend of November 1 at the High Performance base in DCU.
Ireland have also announced their schedule for the season which includes training camps with England in Surrey this weekend and a training camp with the USA squad in San Diego in January and with Canada in March. They will also compete in Dubai and Amsterdam at invitational events.
Murphy said: "It's great to be training and playing rugby every day. I am looking forward to getting started on the circuit."I have been lucky to play with some fantastic rugby players and have learned so much from them, now hopefully I can use some of the experience I have gained in the Rugby World Cup and Six Nations in the Sevens programme."The sky's the limit, we have a huge challenge ahead of us to reach Rio, but we're not the kind of team to shirk away from anything difficult. I am looking forward to it."Ireland have two opportunities to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. The first is an Olympic qualification tournament which will be held in Europe next July with the winners of this event qualifying for Rio.The second is via an Olympic repechage tournament which will be held between January and June 2016.IRELAND WOMEN'S SEVENS - CENTRALISED CONTRACTED PLAYERS:Siobhan BarrettAshleigh BaxterNicole CroninNikki CaugheyAoife DoyleKatie FitzhenryLisa JacobClaire KeohaneMartina McCarthyAlison MillerJenny MurphyLucy MulhallAmee-Leigh Murphy CroweElaine RyanHannah TyrrellLaura Lee WalshSusan VaughanMegan WilliamsAilsa Hughes