– IRFU Announce Women\u2019s Olympic Sevens Programme
\n– Six Nations Championship Success to Act as Springboard for Rio Olympic Games
\n– Talent search now on for Ireland\u2019s Olympic sevens heroes <\/p>\n
As the Ireland Women\u2019s Team returns home today (18 March) as Grand Slam winners with an historic first ever RBS 6 Nations Championship trophy, the IRFU have announced details of further development in the Women\u2019s game with an ultimate target of Olympic success.<\/p>\n
With support from the Irish Sports Council, the IRFU have made the decision to commit to a long term Women\u2019s Sevens Programme with the express goal of qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro. The programme will entail an investment of over \u20ac1.1 million per annum to create a high performance squad with the aspiration to qualify and successfully compete in Rio in 2016.<\/p>\n
In addition to qualification for the Rio games, the strategic aims of the new IRFU Olympic Sevens programme are to:<\/p>\n
Raise the profile of Irish female team sport
\nIncrease female participation in the game of rugby
\nPosition rugby as the sport of choice for young women
\nWith the decision to commit to the Rio 2016 qualification programme, and to ensure long term success in 15-aside and Sevens, the IRFU will continue to operate a sport transfer, Talent Identification Programme (TID) open to all players and athletes who have the potential to play elite women\u2019s rugby. This TID programme has been in operation since January this year with several screening camps taking place throughout Ireland. To date, over 100 players have taken part in screening camps and further camps will be confirmed in the coming weeks. Further information on how to become one of Ireland\u2019s elite sevens players, and potentially represent Ireland in the Rio games, can be found on www.irishrugby.ie.<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s \u2018Road to Rio\u2019 journey begins tomorrow when an elite Irish sevens squad departs for China to take part in the Hong Kong Sevens Women\u2019s Invitational (22-24 March) and the IRB Women\u2019s Sevens World Series in Guangzhou, China\u2019s third largest city, (30-31 March). Squad details will be announced tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Scott Walker, IRFU Director of Rugby Development and the Club Game said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe success of the Women\u2019s team is a mark of their commitment to the game and the culmination of many years hard work by the players and management. I know that everybody in Irish Rugby would like to congratulate them on their achievement. The IRFU will be working to ensure that this success acts as a springboard for recruitment to women\u2019s rugby and we see women\u2019s sevens and the Olympics as a key component to that development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe announcement in 2009 that Rugby Sevens was to be included within the Olympic programme from 2016 onwards provides Ireland with another opportunity, in addition to the National 15-aside team, both to achieve success on the international stage, and to deliver a boost to the growth of women\u2019s rugby at grassroots levels through the provision of an aspirational career path and role models within the sport. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe success of our sevens programme in such a short space of time to qualify for the Sevens Rugby World Cup, which takes place in Moscow in June, is a mark of the talent and commitment of our representative women. To continue to sustain this, it is important for us to expand our pool of players and to identify possible future players. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe IRFU\u2019s Olympic Sevens programme will entail both the talent identification process and necessary support structures for athletes to compete at the levels necessary to not only hopefully qualify for the Rio game, but compete for a podium finish.\u201d <\/p>\n
N.B. Photography will be sent out FOC of the Women’s team returning home to Dublin today with the RBS 6 Nations Championship trophy and an image of the squad with the Olympic rings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
– IRFU Announce Women\u2019s Olympic Sevens Programme – Six Nations Championship Success to Act as Springboard for Rio Olympic Games – Talent search now on for Ireland\u2019s Olympic sevens heroes As the Ireland Women\u2019s Team returns home today (18 March) as Grand Slam winners with an historic first ever RBS 6 Nations Championship trophy, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,1],"tags":[5519,3959,6736,5670],"class_list":["post-43798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ireland-women","category-irish-rugby","tag-cup","tag-rugby","tag-women","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43800,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43798\/revisions\/43800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}