{"id":522950,"date":"2026-04-10T07:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T07:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522950\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T07:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T07:54:15","slug":"womens-six-nations-2026-erin-king-returns-to-captain-ireland-in-england-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522950\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Six Nations 2026: Erin King returns to captain Ireland in England opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erin King will make her first international appearance in a year as she captains Ireland in Saturday’s Six Nations opener in England. <\/p>\n

King missed the World Cup last year after she sustained a knee injury in the defeat by the Red Roses in the 2025 Six Nations. <\/p>\n

The 22-year-old has been named Ireland’s captain<\/a> for the 2026 edition and will start at flanker against an England side who are looking to win an eighth Six Nations in a row.<\/p>\n

She is joined in the back row by Brittany Hogan and Aoife Wafer, who was the Six Nations player of the championship in 2025 but had an injury-hit year. <\/p>\n

Head coach Scott Bemand has named two potential debutants on the bench in the form of prop Eil\u00eds Cahill and scrum-half Katie Whelan.<\/p>\n

Former England prop Ellena Perry will make her first Six Nations appearance for Ireland after switching allegiances ahead of the Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

Hooker Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald will make her 50th Test appearance for Ireland alongside Perry and Linda Djougang, while Dorothy Wall and Fiona Tuite will line out in the second row.<\/p>\n

Emily Lane and Dannah O’Brien will form the half-back partnership, with Eve Higgins and Aoife Dalton a familiar centre pairing. <\/p>\n

Vicky Elmes Kinlan has got the nod to start on the left wing, while Beibhinn Parsons and Stacey Flood complete the back three. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erin King will make her first international appearance in a year as she captains Ireland in Saturday’s Six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-522950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}