World Cup Trio, Baxter, Miller and Murphy Sign up to Irish Women’s Sevens Programme
The Irish Rugby Football Union today announced that 19 players are now centrally contracted players with the Ireland Women’s Sevens High Performance Programme.
The squad includes three of Ireland Women’s Rugby World Cup stars, wingers Ashleigh Baxter and Alison Miller and centre, Jenny Murphy. Along with the rest of the squad, they will train full- time at the IRFU Seven’s High Performance Base in Dublin City University (DCU).
11 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 1st November at the High Performance Base in DCU.
All female athletes who have dreamt of representing Ireland on a world stage can register for the TID day at www.irishrugby.ie/womens7s
Speaking about becoming a professional rugby player, Jenny 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 6 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 in July 2015 with the winner 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 Barrett
Ashleigh Baxter
Nicole Cronin
Nicole Caughey
Aoife Doyle
Katie Fitzhenry
Lisa Jacob
Claire Keohane
Martina McCarthy
Alison Miller
Jenny Murphy
Lucy Mulhall
Amee Leigh Murphy Crowe
Elaine Ryan
Hannah Tyrrell
Lauralee Walsh
Susan Vaughan
Megan Williams
Ailsa Hughes
Ireland Women’s Seven’s Season Plan.
Oct 23-24 Training Camp with English Squad at their base in Surrey, UK
Nov 15 Biarritz Rugby Sevens Women’s International Tournament
Dec 4-5 Dubai International Invitation Women’s Sevens Tournament
Jan 7-17 Training camp in Chula Vista, San Diego with USA Sevens Squad
Mar 28-7 April Training camp in Canada with the Canadian Sevens Squad
May 23-24 Amsterdam Sevens International Tournament
June 13-14 AER (FIRA) European Championships, Moscow
June 20-21 AER (FIRA) European Championships
July 25-26 Olympic Qualifier – Location to be confirmed