rewrite this content and keep HTML tags Claire Molloy, former Ireland captain and current Bristol back-row, chats exclusively to Sky Sports about women’s rugby struggles, her life as an A&E doctor and rugby player, and where Irish rugby has gone wrong… With every season that passes, fresh attendance records are being set in the women’s game. From November 2022 when an epic World Cup final between the Black Ferns and Red Roses saw a world record 42,579 pack out Eden Park, to the near 60,000 fans who watched the 2023 Six Nations Grand Slam finale between England and France at Twickenham, and almost 10,000 supporters at the Premier 15s (now Premiership Women’s Rugby) final earlier this year.Yet, just last week, Ireland and Saracens back-row Grace Moore – who played in each round of the Six Nations earlier this year, and came off the bench for Saracens in their Premier 15s semi-final in June – was forced to take to social media to ask for help with a sponsor for rugby boots ahead of the forthcoming season.It’s a disconnect in clear terms, but by no means unusual. Image: Ireland and Saracens’ Grace Moore took to social media to ask for help with a sponsor for rugby boots Bristol back-row Molloy represented Ireland in 74 Tests between 2009 and September 2021, retiring as captain. Throughout the entirety of her rugby career, the 35-year-old has balanced life with another job: an A&E doctor. Speaking to Sky Sports on the phone from her car outside Bristol Bears’ HPC, having just come off an emergency shift at Morriston Hospital in Swansea and preparing to head for another night’s training, when Molley began her playing career as a budding medicine student in Cardiff, there was no such thing as a women’s rugby player who did not work elsewhere.Times are changing for the better in the sport, but as Molloy points out, women’s rugby is teetering in an uncomfortable position as it tiptoes its way into professionalism. “There definitely could have been more investment and support in Irish rugby. But looking at the nature of the game, would it have been nice to have my boots paid for? Yeah. But would I have preferred investment and better skills coaches? Probably. That’s probably because luckily enough I’ve had an income to supply my boots.”Looking at Grace’s [Moore] situation, I’ve seen Jade Konkel, Scotland international, make the same plea on Twitter. It’s not unique to the Irish girls. These contracts we’re looking at now in a professional light, there’s still a cost of living crisis.”They are not getting massive salaries. £400 a year for boots, that could be a finance that stops them buying the groceries they want and the food they need.”They are not making a living being a professional athlete. They are just about scraping by in the women’s game. There may be full-time contracts for internationals, but you’ve got to rent somewhere in Dublin. How quickly is that going to gobble up your salary? Image: The 35-year-old back-row plays for Bristol in Premiership Women’s Rugby, having re-signed in 2022 from Wasps “What we’ll probably see in years to come is that this model of rugby has to be very careful not to price out people from lower income backgrounds, and that whole talent pool being excluded. Because financially, families can’t support these players to develop to become athletes the way the more affluent can.”That’s something I discuss with friends across club levels. As we step into a semi-professional/professional era, at the moment the girls that can commit either need a job that can allow them to, or need the financial support that means they don’t have to work the hours to make the time.”You’re looking at 15/16 hours a week just training and adding in a matchday on the same time. It could be a 25/30 hour week. If you add in travel, the prep around training, the feeding. It’s the equivalent of more than a part-time job, and yes there are contracted players, but there are still a good chunk across the Premiership that aren’t getting paid and doing it for the love of rugby. And they are the ones that can afford to do it.”I hope rugby doesn’t leave behind all those types of players. In increasing diversity in the game, we want everyone to see someone like themselves on the pitch, and that’s really important going forward.” Image: Molloy picked up 74 Test caps for Ireland between 2009 and 2021 ‘Legacy left with Ireland is heartbreaking; We missed boat and are years behind English development pathways’A Galway native, if Molloy was always going to be a doctor – having been fascinated with medicine and science “from day dot” – she was seemingly destined too to have some involvement in sport.Remarkably, each of her three siblings represented Ireland at different sports in underage levels and while Gaelic football was Molloy’s first love, it was only moving to Cardiff in 2007 to study medicine that her talents were opened up to the world of rugby union. Image: An all-action flanker, Molloy says she was quickly put in the back-row after first taking up rugby in Cardiff in 2007 “I came over to Cardiff and there was no Gaelic football to be played. I had an interest in rugby and thought, this looks like a sport for me. Being in Wales, it seemed like a natural fit.”I did fancy myself as a nippy back when I first joined, but they quickly put me in the forwards. They knew I liked being busy, so back-row has stuck since then!”And busy she has been. To even conceive of a career involving being an A&E doctor and Test rugby player (and then captain) is near unthinkable. Yet, Molloy was part of the most successful period in Irish women’s history.In 2013, she picked up a Six Nations Grand Slam medal. She was captain of the first Ireland side ever to qualify for the Sevens World Cup in the same year, while at the 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup, she was part of the Ireland side which knocked out New Zealand to make the semi-finals. In 2015, Molloy picked up her second Six Nations winners medal.The low point of her career arrived prior to international retirement in September 2021 when a World Cup qualifying tournament in Parma brought shock defeats to Spain and Scotland, which saw Italy qualify for the World Cup at Ireland’s expense. Image: Molloy says the low point of her career came in Parma in September 2021 when Ireland missed out on World Cup qualification After missing out on that World Cup, Ireland have since gone on to experience the worst period in their history, culminating in a 2023 Six Nations Wooden Spoon after five defeats, the result of which saw them placed in the third tier of the new WXV tournament during October, playing the likes of Kazakhstan, Colombia and Spain – beating the latter only due to a try with five minutes to play.How have Ireland gone from Six Nations champions to their current state in just eight years?”There’s been lots of analysis, conversations, reviews and articles written about Irish women’s rugby. You have to look at where has the Irish club game progressed? Where are we producing players? Keeping hold of them? We’ve missed the boat. “There were opportunities at the height of 2014, 2015, 2016, where that was the time to look at the structure of the game in terms of clubs, develop better quality competition, look at the Interpros and give continuity to players and coaches with a regular schedule.”I don’t know how many times the season structure has changed year-on-year. How do you plan for that? How do you maintain and retain players when they don’t know when the Interpros will be this year? And that’s been the same for many years.” Image: The flanker says there has never been enough consistency in season structures within the Irish game Molloy feels the English Premiership is “10-15 years ahead of development pathways in Ireland” and that they need to create a competitive league to retain players. Image: Molloy says Ireland and the IRFU ‘missed the boat’ to make changes and progress around 2014, 2015, 2016 “It’s not going to be written in a day. If you look at the investment and development in the Irish Women’s Sevens programme, how many years has it…
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