{"id":437004,"date":"2026-05-07T14:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/437004\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:13:11","slug":"eve-higgins-starts-as-ireland-name-team-to-play-wales-in-six-nations-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/437004\/","title":{"rendered":"Eve Higgins starts as Ireland name team to play Wales in Six Nations \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Eve Higgins comes in at centre as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ireland-women-s-rugby\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ireland-women-s-rugby\/\">Ireland<\/a>\u2019s head coach Scott Bemand has made one change for Saturday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/women-s-six-nations\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/women-s-six-nations\/\">Women\u2019s Six Nations<\/a> clash against Wales at Affidea Stadium (kick-off 6.30pm, live on RT\u00c92 and BBC iPlayer).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Higgins replaces Nancy McGillvray, while Aoibheann Reilly was expected to feature at some stage but has suffered a leg injury in training.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Bemand has named an unchanged back three of Stacey Flood, B\u00e9ibhinn Parsons and Robyn O\u2019Connor, as Higgins comes in to link up with Aoife Dalton in midfield, while in the halfbacks, Emily Lane and Dannah O\u2019Brien are selected at scrumhalf and outhalf respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Up front, Ellena Perry, Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald and Linda Djougang pack down together, with Dorothy Wall and Fiona Tuite in the engine room and Brittany Hogan, captain Erin King and Aoife Wafer in the backrow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Bemand has named uncapped back Niamh Gallagher among the replacements following her impressive performances for Ireland Under-21s in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Neve Jones, Sadhbh McGrath, Eil\u00eds Cahill, Ruth Campbell, Sam Monaghan and Grace Moore are the forwards on Ireland\u2019s bench, with backs Katie Whelan and Gallagher completing the matchday 23.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland: Stacey Flood; B\u00e9ibhinn Parsons, Eve Higgins, Aoife Dalton, Robyn O\u2019Connor; Dannah O\u2019Brien, Emily Lane; Ellena Perry, Cl\u00edodhna Moloney-MacDonald, Linda Djougang; Dorothy Wall, Fiona Tuite; Brittany Hogan, Erin King (capt), Aoife Wafer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Replacements: Neve Jones, Sadhbh McGrath, Eil\u00eds Cahill, Ruth Campbell, Sam Monaghan, Grace Moore, Katie Whelan, Niamh Gallagher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eve Higgins comes in at centre as Ireland\u2019s head coach Scott Bemand has made one change for Saturday\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,1254,43,123979],"class_list":["post-437004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-womens-rugby","tag-news","tag-women-s-six-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437004","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=437004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}