A DOCUMENTARY chronicling Ennis Women\u2019s Rugby\u2019s first season in the All-Ireland League will premiere on Thursday August 27th in the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis from 7pm.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the event, women\u2019s head coach Gareth O\u2019Hanlon spoke to\u00a0The Clare Echo\u00a0about the filming process and how the idea for \u201cWho We Are \u2013 Ennis Rugby in the AIL\u201d, came about.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hanlon, who is entering his fifth season as head coach after taking charge when the women\u2019s team was first established, said the idea for the documentary came from James Lynch, a member of the popular \u2018Intensive Clare\u2019 sports podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of the footage and he just said wouldn\u2019t it be cool to just document the first ever All-Ireland league team to play in the league\u201d, O\u2019Hanlon explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames just started off by looking at the preseason and the gym sessions then pitch sessions after that he started interviewing players and coaches and filming the matches and talking about them as well\u201d, the coach continued.<\/p>\n
Winner of a Munster Schools Senior Cup with St. Munchin\u2019s in 2006, the Limerick man played at junior and senior level for Richmond for a number of years before taking charge of the Ennis RFC women\u2019s team in 2021.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hanlon described the filming process as \u201cseamless\u201d, adding that with Lynch \u201cFor a lot of the time we wouldn\u2019t even know he was there. I suppose it gave us an opportunity to kind of reflect week on week when we were sitting down with James and the players as well\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just gave us an opportunity to reflect because it was such a busy year. Our first year in the All-Ireland League was extremely busy and it was all new to us. It was very enjoyable and it\u2019s something that the players will have forever. They\u2019ll have that documentary to look back on and it\u2019s a big part of one, women\u2019s rugby history and two, the history of rugby in Clare as well. So it\u2019s a nice keepsake and a memory I\u2019m sure a lot of them will remember forever\u201d, he continued.<\/p>\n
Initially, the players had \u201ca mixed bag\u201d of reactions to appearing on camera but O\u2019Hanlon said that the squad ultimately came to enjoy the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were kind of worried but they enjoyed it. It was a way for them to voice how the experience was for them week on week as well. It was very enjoyable for a finish. I think the players are so excited to look back on the year because it\u2019s hard when you\u2019re kind of in it, it\u2019s like a roller coaster. Now a couple of months on, I think they\u2019re only now starting to understand how successful last season was and they\u2019re looking forward to just watching it back and reliving a lot of the special memories they made throughout the season\u201d, said O\u2019Hanlon.<\/p>\n
The film is being screened as part of a fundraiser for the team and players, coaches and the filmmakers will be there on the night. Kilrush RFC will also be in attendance, having played a significant role in the initial set up of the Ennis RFC women\u2019s team as they initially played together in an amalgamation before being stopped from competing together as amalgamations are not allowed in the AIL.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very excited and although we\u2019re moving on to a new chapter, moving on to season two, it\u2019s going to be nice just to sit down and reflect and try to get our head around last season and understand how successful it was\u201d, O\u2019Hanlon added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A DOCUMENTARY chronicling Ennis Women\u2019s Rugby\u2019s first season in the All-Ireland League will premiere on Thursday August 27th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[34860,26809,253643,253644,253645,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-598454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ail","tag-ennis","tag-ennis-rfc","tag-ennis-rugby","tag-gareth-ohanlon","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598454","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=598454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}