{"id":436704,"date":"2026-05-07T10:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/436704\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:37:09","slug":"higgins-return-as-ireland-make-one-change-for-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/436704\/","title":{"rendered":"Higgins return as Ireland make one change for Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eve Higgins returns to the Ireland team for Saturday’s Guinness Women\u2019s Six Nations meeting with Wales in Belfast, as the only change from their Round 3 defeat to France.<\/p>\n

The centre, who featured off the bench for the last two games, returns to the starting team in place of Nancy McGillivray, who drops out of the matchday squad.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the only change to the first XV named by Scott Bemand, although the head coach has made a number of changes to his bench.<\/p>\n

Sadhbh McGrath comes back into the squad in place of Niamh O\u2019Dowd, covering loosehead prop, having previously featured as a tighthead against Italy.<\/p>\n

Grace Moore is also back among the replacements after being left out for the last two games, with the versatile forward part of a 6:2 split on the bench.<\/p>\n

Anna McGann drops out of the matchday 23, with Trailfinders\u2019 Niamh Gallagher (below) set for her debut off the bench.<\/p>\n

\"15<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old from Enfield featured for Ireland U21s earlier in their win against Italy last month.<\/p>\n

For the fourth game in a row, Bemand has picked the same front and back rows, with Ellena Perry, Cl\u00edodhna Moloney-MacDonald and Linda Djougang packing down in the front row, while captain Erin King and Brittany Hogan flank number 8 Aoife Wafer.<\/p>\n

Fiona Tuite, who has played every minute for Ireland in this championship, starts in the second row alongside Dorothy Wall, with Ruth Campbell and Sam Monaghan available off the bench.<\/p>\n

The settled half-back partnership of Emily Lane and Dnnah O\u2019Brien is also retained, with Higgins joining Aoife Dalton in the centre.<\/p>\n

Beibhinn Parsons and Robyn O\u2019Connor start on the wings, with Stacey Flood continuing at full-back.<\/p>\n

Ireland: Stacey Flood; B\u00e9ibhinn Parsons, Eve Higgins, Aoife Dalton, Robyn O’Connor; Dannah O’Brien, Emily Lane; Ellena Perry, Cl\u00edodhna Moloney-MacDonald; Dorothy Wall, Fiona Tuite; Brittany Hogan, Erin King (capt), Aoife Wafer.<\/p>\n

Replacements: Neve Jones, Sadhbh McGrath, Eil\u00eds Cahill, Ruth Campbell, Sam Monaghan, Grace Moore, Katie Whelan, Niamh Gallagher.<\/p>\n

Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie<\/p>\n

\n

Watch Ireland v Wales in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations on Saturday from 6pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to Saturday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eve Higgins returns to the Ireland team for Saturday’s Guinness Women\u2019s Six Nations meeting with Wales in Belfast,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-436704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436704","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=436704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}