{"id":577039,"date":"2026-03-31T20:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/577039\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T20:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:53:09","slug":"niamh-briggs-hails-exciting-time-for-womens-rugby-as-six-nations-set-to-begin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/577039\/","title":{"rendered":"Niamh Briggs hails exciting time for women\u2019s rugby as Six Nations set to begin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Ireland rugby star Niamh Briggs says that work done by the IRFU<\/a> to professionalise the game is paying dividends in advance of the beginning of the Women\u2019s Six Nations<\/a> in two weeks\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/a> reached their highest peaks in Briggs\u2019s playing days as she was a big part of two Six Nations-winning teams in 2013 and 2015, winning the Grand Slam in 2013 and captaining the team in 2015. But they hit a nadir by failing to win a match in the 2023 Six Nations and falling to 10th in the world rankings, which came at a time of accusations of sexism within the IRFU.<\/p>\n

Under Scott Bemand<\/a>, Ireland have since moved up to fifth in the world rankings and have finished third in the Six Nations for the past two seasons. Briggs, now Ireland\u2019s under-21s coach and involved in talent development with Munster, says plans such as that to launch four contracted women\u2019s provinces later this year make it an exciting time for Irish rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have young girls now that are on their journey that can potentially play professional rugby for their home province, which is a cool space to be in. [In the past] I feel like we didn\u2019t have foundations in terms of building the game from the bottom up, it was a very top-down approach. So we\u2019d lots of players in international rugby but maybe the underage system and club system wasn\u2019t really where it needed to be, whereas that\u2019s changed massively.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old coach credits the Celtic Challenge for improving the standard of rugby in the country as well as the National Talent Squad programme, which has expanded the scope and resources for a lot of young players coming through.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutting young players into a training environment with international players has been huge for their learning and their development. I have players who will come into Ireland under-21s and they\u2019ll have been with the Clovers or Wolfhounds the past 12 weeks and the player we\u2019re getting is so much further along in their evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Ireland captain Niamh Briggs is working with IHG Hotels & Resorts to supply \u2018fancierge\u2019 experiences during the Women\u2019s Six Nations <\/p>\n

Briggs will coach in a new under-21 Women\u2019s Six Nations Series tournament, which will see Ireland play Italy, England and Wales, beginning with a match against Italy at the Dexcom Stadium in Galway on Saturday, April 18th. Teams are permitted to select a limited number of players up to the age of 23, ensuring further exposure for players of national interest leading up to the senior national team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt offers another opportunity for players to get a flavour of international rugby. We get to see if they\u2019re capable of playing at that level and it doesn\u2019t close the door for anybody that\u2019s coming into the game late, and I think that that\u2019s really important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are nine uncapped players in the senior Ireland team\u2019s Six Nations squad, which Briggs says is a \u201creally good mix of youth and experience\u201d and is led by 22-year-old captain Erin King, who was in fine form for the Wolfhounds as they won their third Celtic Challenge in a row.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Scott Bemand continues building Ireland\u2019s depth as nine uncapped players named in Six Nations squadOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a superstar really in terms of what she has done in the game at such a young age. I am really looking forward to seeing them build on the momentum of the World Cup, and what better way than to play in front of a packed stadium at Twickenham.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland bring their campaign against England on Saturday, April 11th and will play a stand-alone game in the Aviva Stadium for the first time, against Scotland on Sunday, May 17th.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there have been lots of tickets sold already. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to get to where Twickenham is in a couple of weeks, but if we even get to half of that it will be a huge day and it\u2019ll be a really big next step for where the game is here in Ireland. It\u2019s been growing steadily over the past five to seven years, with regular games on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ireland rugby star Niamh Briggs says that work done by the IRFU to professionalise the game is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,283001,41549,104053,760,85,283000],"class_list":{"0":"post-577039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-erin-king","11":"tag-ireland-womens-rugby","12":"tag-irfu","13":"tag-rugby","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-women-s-six-nations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577039","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=577039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}