'Give it a chance' – Investment can take Women's rugby to next level

Former Ireland rugby international Fiona Hayes has said women’s rugby will pay for itself if the IRFU “give it a chance” and invest in it.

The IRFU today apologised to any players who felt they had been ignored in the past and pledged to invest a further €1m per year into the women’s game.

The union said it would not be publishing the full report into the Irish team’s failure to qualify for the last World Cup – but have accepted all 30 of its recommendations.

The report was commissioned after the women’s team experienced a major setback in fortunes – going from a Grand Slam in 2013 to failure to qualify for the World Cup in 2021.

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, former international Fiona Hayes said he ‘100% welcomes the apology”.

“I think it is great that they have come out and done that and said look, here, we were wrong,” she said

“There is a slight bit of disappointment that the full report wasn’t published but I know they have given reasons behind that and to me, it says that really there were a lot of things going on behind the scenes that can’t really be talked about due to data protection.”

Decline

She said the team has experienced a massive decline since 2014 – noting that the incident that annoyed her most was when the IRFU advertised for apart-time c