Girls Rugby Section Thriving At Old Crescent RFC

Old Crescent RFC in Limerick has experienced plenty of growth in their girls rugby programme over the last 18 months.

Former Ireland international, Marie Carroll, who is currently coaching at the club and assisted in starting the girls rugby programme, tells Munster Rugby how the idea came about to set up a girls section.

“The club reached out to some of the ex-players about 18 months ago. One of the lads, Rob Geary, his daughter was playing with the underage. She would be about seven or eight and she wasn’t really comfortable playing with boys so he said, ‘Right, I’m starting a girls team.’

“So he started a girls team based around Ellie and her friends. So there was about eight of them there. Old Crescent reached out to us and I said I would give them a hand because the club did a lot for me. 18 months ago, myself and Rob started it off. It’s just progressed from that from about eight players we started with.”

Despite the challenges which arose due to the restrictions associated with Covid-19, the club were able to run four weeks of the IRFU’s Give It A Try initiative in August 2020. This facilitated more girls to pick up a rugby ball for the first time and the momentum generated has eventually led to a situation whereby the club are welcoming in excess of 50 girls to Rossbrien every Sunday.

“We ran four weeks of it (Give It A Try) last August and we had great fun. Out of that then, we picked up another 10 players. The momentum has just seemed to go on. Last week, Rob text me there, we have 53 players on the books. Four new girls arrived there last Sunday, it’s just word of mouth more than anything.”

Looking ahead, Carroll hopes that a strong focus on skills, participation and fun will eventually lead to a senior team in the future.

“It’s all about participation as far as we’re concerned and being a part of a team, socialising and having friends.”

Carroll added:

“We don’t have a senior team but the way I look at it, if we develop them at that age, get all the basic skills and progress from that. Even if you look at the Irish setup at the moment. They have Mini rugby players coming through the system. If you develop them at underage, they will progress and they will have all the basic skills. That’s how we’re looking at it. Give them the skills and give them the social outlet as well.”