{"id":253766,"date":"2026-01-20T06:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253766\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T06:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:12:09","slug":"ireland-rugby-star-aoife-wafer-its-a-game-i-dont-think-ill-ever-be-over-maybe-if-you-ask-me-in-10-years-but-right-now-it-still-hurts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253766\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland rugby star Aoife Wafer: \u2018It\u2019s a game I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever be over. Maybe if you ask me in 10 years. But, right now, it still hurts\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nGrowing up, Aoife Wafer excelled in GAA, school and music, but ever since watching her rugby heroes from the sidelines aged six, the seed was planted. Now 22, the pro flanker talks about joining Harlequins, the Six Nations in April and where she gets her drive\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768889529_750_video.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Ireland&#8217;s Aoife Wafer on her move to Harlequins and the women&#8217;s Lions tour                      <\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">How close to 100pc were you at the World Cup? Aoife Wafer mulls the question, then replies, \u201cPhysically or mentally 100pc?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Let us start with physically. In early July of last year, the Ireland rugby flanker underwent surgery to repair cruciate ligament tears in her knee. Ireland would play their first match of the tournament on August 2. Wafer, their star player, would miss that and the entire pool stages. She fought, rehabbed and trained through the pain barrier to make it back on September 14 for Ireland\u2019s quarter-final against France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up, Aoife Wafer excelled in GAA, school and music, but ever since watching her rugby heroes from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,4174,43,1255],"class_list":["post-253766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-rugby-football-union-irfu","tag-news","tag-rugby-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}