{"id":392936,"date":"2026-04-11T07:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/392936\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T07:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:35:11","slug":"irelands-robyn-oconnor-is-surrounded-by-rugby-24-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/392936\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s Robyn O’Connor is surrounded by rugby 24\/7"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Six Nations tournament<\/a> finally here, Robyn O\u2019Connor is ready and raring to go, and it helps that she\u2019s surrounded by rugby 24\/7.<\/p>\n

The Wexford star has been named among the Ireland squad and tells EVOKE that training with the team, who are like a ‘bunch of sisters\u2019, is as much craic as we\u2019d imagine.<\/p>\n

Once training is over, the fun doesn\u2019t stop as Robyn, who is studying for a Business Management degree, lives with several of her teammates, although she says they\u2019re not a party house.<\/p>\n

\"LeinsterLeinster players Robyn O’Connor, right, and Jade Gaffney. Pic: Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u2018College takes up a good part of my time outside of rugby because rugby is the majority of my time. I come home and I just cook dinner and do college,\u2019 Robyn said about her day-to-day.<\/p>\n

She continued: \u2019My housemates are rugby players as well, and two [Sadhbh McGrath and Enya Breen] are in camp as well, which is really handy, then a few of the girls are rehabbing, so we might go to a sauna and ice bath or something like that.<\/p>\n

Robyn loves living with her teammates as it means they understand what\u2019s needed to be at the top of their game.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland\u2019sIreland\u2019s Robyn O\u2019Connor playing Sevens in Hong Kong. Pic: INPHO\/Joe Hamby<\/p>\n

She said: \u2018It\u2019s nice because everyone’s on the same schedule. I talked to a few girls in college and they’re like, \u201cOh, it must be so nice like living in your own house with all your friends\u201d, they think we throw parties all the time, but I\u2019m always like, \u201cwrong house, you’ve got the wrong people!\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

Managing rugby and college can be quite the balancing act, but Robyn says so far it\u2019s been okay and that her college is great at helping her do both.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also well used to working around training and games, having fallen in love with the sport as a child who grew up in a rugby-loving household.<\/p>\n

Robyn said: \u2018When I was growing up, it was mostly Gaelic football and camogie, but I didn’t actually play that many sports, but I really took it up when I was 10 or so and in under-14s teams.<\/p>\n

\"RobynRobyn O’Connor of Leinster prepares in the dressing room. Pic: Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u2018I took up rugby because my brother would have played in the club Wexford Wanderers, and my dad was the coach. They were always like “give it a go\u201d and eventually I did, but there was no underage team for girls in my club.<\/p>\n

\u2018We had to come together and form a team, there were only 10 or so of us at the start, so I took rugby up in under 14 and then just never looked back and fell in love.\u2019<\/p>\n

Robyn credits her dad with giving her the rugby bug, saying he \u2018sleeps and breathes rugby\u2019 and would have it on the TV all the time.<\/p>\n

\u2018It’s like a second home down at the rugby club,\u2019 Robyn said. \u2018He would watch women’s rugby, men’s rugby, anything to do with rugby.<\/p>\n

Heading into the Six Nations, Robyn will be putting the experience she gained playing Sevens for Ireland in Dubai and Cape Town to good use.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah Clarke, Clare Gorman, and Robyn O’Connor. in South Africa Pic: Hannah Clarke \/ Instagram<\/p>\n

She said: \u2018A good part of last year, I played 7s rugby, because a lot of the girls who would have primarily been 7s to begin with were transitioned to 15s to prepare for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u2018I feel like we were a very young team, and we were kind of thrown into the deep end, so when we lost a good few games in a row, it was tough.\u2019<\/p>\n

That said, Robyn learned important lessons, and she’s facing the Six Nations with great learnings behind her.<\/p>\n

\u2018One [learning] I guess would be to keep showing up, it will be tough at times, but you just have to try to look at the brighter side and remember why you’re doing it,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Six Nations tournament finally here, Robyn O\u2019Connor is ready and raring to go, and it helps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-392936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392936","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=392936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}