Rugby must ensure players like Aoife Doyle are better served
When Aoife Doyle finally stops jinking and swerving through baffled defensive lines, she can reflect fondly on a time spent exuding every last drop of her commitment to the sport she loves.
he will know that she afforded herself the optimum opportunities to be the best. But when that moment comes, can those who were charged with the responsibility in curating her talent honestly admit that at all times they did the same for her?
Doyle’s idiosyncratic career has embraced Kipling’s twin imposters but, whether greeting success or failure, she has had to navigate through ever muddier waters to achieve her primary ambitions of playing a game she loves.
Nobody sought to directly diminish players like Doyle; it’s just that there weren’t enough people seeking to ensure they received the most thorough supports possible.
As someone on the outside witnessing her briefest description of a sporting life, it seems to us that were it not for her undoubted passion, it was a wonder she did not simply walk away.
“Two years ago I left the sevens programme and I actually wasn’t sure if I was going to go back to rugby or not,” she says.
“I left the programme, wasn’t playing club, and I just focused myself on studying.
“I had gone straight into the sevens programme from school and I had tunnel vision when it came to rugby. I didn’t really want to do anything else.
“I reassessed once we didn’t qualify for the Olympics. I got a full season on the series with no injuries, which was huge for me, and after that I just said I would focus on college now.
“I think I lasted three or four weeks until I was back in with Railway (Union). I spoke with Adam Griggs, the coach of the 15s squad at the time, about coming back in and seeing what happens.
“I’ve been there ever since now.”
Hers is a story of battling against the odds stacked against her by inimical circumstances.
Her juggling of twin ambitions was not without initial success; she was part of the 2015 Six Nations championship-winning side which ultimately punctuated, rather than preceded, that group’s remarkable progress.
Now she is back to face England once more, amidst vastly different circumstances; seven years ago Ireland defeated an England who had themselves withdrawn their Olympic players at the time; itself a decision not without rancour albeit they did finish fourth in Rio.
This week, more than half-a-dozen of Doyle’s compatriots are denied that opportunity – they would have been the only Irish professionals available to tackle England’s pros and all declared their disappointment at missing out – and Doyle herself becomes an unwitting beneficiary as she completes a personal circle.
Her promotion is no surprise but the prospect of a clutch of her colleagues, without any match practice in months, lining out against a supremely conditioned English side, illustrates the inherited dereliction of duty from which the sport continues to suffer.
Not that she or others are undeserving of the chance, you understand; but it merely demonstrates the cack-handed legacy of a sport whose historic disdain for the implementation of coherent pathways and workable structures has left so many gasping for air.
Some of her team-mates may be doing so this weekend, as she outlines the difficulties they face.
“After a sevens tournament, we always had two or three days off when we came home for recovery and then light training.
“But we don’t have that luxury at the moment so when we fly back on Sunday, there will be girls in work and college on Monday morning before meeting up on Thursday.
“So you have to take that onus on yourself that if you get time on your lunch break, you head to the swimming pool.
“If you have time after work, you do a recovery session. It’s just on the player to figure out the key times they can maximise their recovery.”
It is an impossible position and the only hope is that future generations may benefit from their brave struggles.
