Over 150 members of the Sport for Business community gathered at the RDS yesterday to look forward to The Sporting Year Ahead in 2023 with an A-List lineup of speakers who will themselves be playing a key role in delivering a year to remember.

You could have heard a pin drop as Vera Pauw spoke with passion and purpose about her personal journey towards taking up the role of Women’s National Team Manager and then in incredible detail about that night in Glasgow where the qualification was secured to the Women’s World Cup this summer as well as the road the team had traveled to that point.

We will have excerpts from her interview as well as those of the other speakers in a series of catch-up articles on the event through next week.

Padraig Power, the Chief Commercial Officer of the IRFU took time out from the Guinness Six Nations prep to talk with us about the year ahead in Irish Rugby from a sold out Musgrave Park for the U20 Six Nations to the two marquee games in the Aviva Stadium and then on to the Rugby World Cup in France in the Autumn.

He spoke of the challenges that are being met in creating a serious, sustainable pathway for Women’s Rugby to become an ever bigger part of the sport here and of the occasional what if wondering about the bid that had intended to make this a World Cup year in Ireland but which finished second to the French.

We quite rightly could not draw GAA President Larry McCarthy into any comment on the AIB Club Championship Football Final which is still going through the process of objection and ruling but we did have a very open and engaging chat about how he was persuaded to consider the Presidency from his New York Base back in 2020, and what he feels has been achieved going into the final year of his term.

“I was fortunate in that I was opening things back up again while my predecessor John Horan had a tougher job closing them down,” he said of the impact of Covid, also referencing how the Association had stepped up as a community organisation during the darkest days.

He hinted that next week’s publication of the GAA Annual Report would show how the GAA had bounced back and also of how the mantra of ‘Where We All Belong’ was core to whet they did within the sport and in working with sponsors.

We were treated to a tour de force of data and insight from our partners Teneo and their Sport Sponsorship sentiment Index, some of which we have shared below. If you want more then rob.pearson@teneo.com will oblige.

The morning was peppered with insights from more of our partners about some of the events taking place this year away from the Big Three.

Brendan Meehan told us that there would be up to 40,000 Americans traveling over for the Notre Dame Navy Aer Lingus College Football Classic in August.

Gavin Noble spoke about Team Ireland’s preparation to take part in the third European (Olympic) Games in Krakow.

Adam Cox told us what we could expect from the U23 European Swimming Championships being held at the Sport Ireland Campus this year and Jackie Donohoe had a special treat with a ticket for everyone in the audience to the Dublin Racing Festival taking place at Leopardstown next weekend.

The show was then very nearly stolen completely by Special Olympics Ireland CEO Matt English and Basketball competitor for Ireland at this summer’s World Games in Berlin, Margaret Turley.

“Let me win. But if I cannot let me be brave in the attempt,” she said reciting the Special Olympics Athlete’s Oath.

The buzz of conversation and connection was ringing out long after the lights went down on what was a very special morning.

Here is the guest list of those who were with us in the morning.