The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is investigating “cowardly” racist abuse directed at Edwin Edogbo following his international debut.<\/p>\n
Munster second row Edogbo was targeted on social media after coming on as a replacement in Saturday’s 20-13 Six Nations victory over Italy in Dublin.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old was born and raised in Cobh, County Cork to Nigerian parents.<\/p>\n
Posts on the IRFU’s X and Instagram accounts celebrating Edogbo’s first cap attracted a number of racist comments.<\/p>\n
In a statement released to Press Association Sport, an IRFU spokesperson said: “We’re aware of some targeted abuse online in recent days and continue to work with Signify [a data technology company which specialises in protecting against online abuse] and the relevant authorities to report it.<\/p>\n
“We will also continue to fully support all affected by the cowardly actions of a minority and investigations are underway alongside our partners Signify.<\/p>\n
“It is clear that racist abuse has no place in Irish society and the IRFU has a zero tolerance policy towards racism of any form.”<\/p>\n
Edogbo played the final 10 minutes against Italy after coming on for James Ryan.<\/p>\n
He received a huge cheer from the Aviva Stadium crowd before helping Andy Farrell’s side hold on for victory during a nail-biting finale.<\/p>\n
“I think my main goal with this campaign — I’ve had a few chances with Faz (Farrell) and a few chats with Paulie (forwards coach Paul O’Connell) – I just want to learn as much as possible,” said Edogbo.<\/p>\n
“Obviously every player wants to play all the games but I understand this is a very special place, a very privileged place to be and it takes time.<\/p>\n
“I think Faz did an interview about how I need to find my feet and he’s 100 per cent right, there is an element of knowing the system, knowing your team-mates and ultimately international rugby is a different beast.<\/p>\n
“I suppose I got a taste of that and I know from that little block I had there, there’s a lot of work to be done and I’m looking forward to it.”<\/p>\n
Ireland continue their Six Nations campaign on Saturday against England at Twickenham.<\/p>\n
The squad trained on Monday, with the medical team reporting no fresh injury concerns from the Italy game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is investigating “cowardly” racist abuse directed at Edwin Edogbo following his international…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-484289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}