Club Notes | Changing the Algorithm: Abbeyfeale RFC’s Movement To Empower Teenage Girls in Rugby

History was made last weekend in the Premiership Women’s Rugby as America’s Ilona Maher took to the field for her first ever game with Briston Bears.

Maher’s current social media channels boasts a whopping 8.2 Million followers across both Tiktok and Instagram where she shares messages of body positivity and encourages her followers to continue playing sports.

In Ireland it is estimated that 1 in 5 girls drop out of sport between primary and post-primary school age.

How do we change this?

Abbeyfeale RFC Club and Community Rugby Officer, Aine Reidy, has taken her own steps to encourage and promote a positive rugby environment for female players within the club.

When rugby returned after the summer months Reidy, along with fellow Abbeyfeale coach Mike Nash, began working on this project. In doing this she learnt that what teenage girls consume on social media can be a  contributing factor to girls giving up sport.

Soon a transformative idea took root. She thought about how she could change the algorithms on teenage girls’ phones to expose them to more positive rugby related content.

Over the coming weeks Reidy returned to her club and began working with coaches to create videos of rugby drills, training sessions, and match snippets. She then sent these videos to the players parents and asked them to share them with their daughters.

The results she got back were astounding.

It went down so well with the players that they created a Tiktok account of their own, Abbeyfeale Girls Rugby, where they actively repost rugby drills, girls in rugby, and sports content.

What Aine learnt from this process was that by leveraging their phones, she could transform them from distractions into tools for empowerment.

In addition to this digital shift, Abbeyfeale have upgraded their sports complex facilities, adding sanitary bins, products, and first aid bags equipped with essential items for girls. These changes reflect the club’s commitment to supporting and promoting girls in rugby.

Check out Abbeyfeale’s Tiktok here.