Seven to Sevens doesn't add up in Irish women's numbers crunch

CAN Ireland sustain running elite women’s XVs and Sevens teams at the moment given the small size of Ireland’s playing population?

That was the inevitable question when Greg McWilliams confirmed he is losing a whopping seven players, including all of his best backs, to the Irish Sevens programme with two games left in the Six Nations.

It's left him hugely understrength facing the awesome England side, on an unbeaten 21-game streak, in their own den in Leicester on Sunday (12pm) and things are made even worse by the injury loss of Sam Monaghan and Aoife Wafer from the pack.

Irelands odds against the Red Roses were monumental even before they losing Beibhin Parsons, Stacey Flood, Eve Higgins, Lucy Mulhall, Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe, Anna McGann and Brittany Hogan due to the resumption of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in Langford (Canada) on April 30-May 1.

Their mid-season switch was always expected and agreed because the IRFU has prioritised qualifying for the Sevens World Cup this year, an aspiration given considerable oxygen when they were runners up in a leg in Seville in January.

“Unfortunately we failed to qualify for the World Cup and we felt it was important to give the Sevens the chance to be successful because we want nothing more than for Ireland to be successful whether it is 15s or 7s,” McWilliams said.

“It places an emphasis on the player pool but we all know that. Everybody at the IRFU knows that and we are doing our best to try to improve that.

“The goal for me over the next three or four years is to improve the playing pool. You have to because you are relying on a small group of players. That’s why they came up with Katie Fitzhenry’s role as the Pathway Manager and our U18s played in their first ever Six Nations last week. Eventually you will get a bigger group of players and be less reliant on a smaller group,” he said.

Their loss has resulted in a recall to the squad for veteran centre Sene Naoupu plus Laura Feely, Laura Sheehan, Mary Healy, Shannon Touhy and the uncapped Leinster pair of Niamh Byrne and Alice O'Dowd.

What McWilliams hadn’t planned for was the loss of ‘Sammy Bill’ Monaghan as her teammates have nicknamed the Wasps lock for her powerful offloading game this season. She strained a calf in training last Saturday.

“She's a very different person to the person I met out in Wasps in February. She's grown so much into the role and loves the fact she has more responsibility. You just move on now, it's about coming up with a plan that works around her absence,” he said.

“I totally believe in our player pool and this will be a day when we will learn a lot about ourselves. And if we can be competitive and put it up to England, that will be fantastic. But they are the best team in the world by far. They are 15-20 points ahead of France at the moment from what I have seen, maybe more,” he admitted.