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| Niamh Briggs and Paul O' Connell with their 2015 6Nations Trophies at Thomond. PIC Inpho via Joe.ie |
Irish rugby has been having a moment across the men’s and women’s codes with trophies popping up everywhere. The buzz of the 2015 6Nations wins have been captured in a new book which flips between interviews with the amateur women players and the professional men’s team, and it’s a cracker of a read.
Written by journalists Kate Rowan and Peter O’ Reilly, "Six Nations, Two Stories" is an insightful look at the differences between the older, financially lucrative men’s game and the upstart women’s game. And the one stand-out similarity: passion.
So what did I learn?
- Nora Stapleton on ‘alickadoos’: the men’s sport is built on an old-boys and old- school tradition. She says women’s rugby is different. “It is your community, your club, your friends and it is where you want to hang out.”
Coach Tom Tierney on ‘training age’: women come to the sport at different ages and from different sports so there isn’t that uniformity of experience you have in the men’s game.
Niamh Briggs on team spirit: she gets her own chapter in the book but stresses how much other players contribute, and names who else should be in there.
Luke Fitzgerald on resilience: Boom! one week you’re in the team, next Monday morning you’ve had a crap game and Boom! You’re back to the start.
You can read an extract on 42.ie where Kate Tyrell talks about overcoming an eating disorder with help from her team-mates and sport.
Want to read more? Tell me in 150 words or less why you support or play women’s rugby to win a paperback copy.
You can leave a comment here below, or on real girl sport Facebook or just plain old email me:
realgirlsport (at) gmail (dot) com
Lines open (so to speak) until Saturday October 10th.
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