Canterbury, the official kit partner to Irish Rugby launched the new Men and Women’s jerseys in June with the women’s side wearing the jersey for the first time this weekend in Japan.
Brand ambassador Fiona Coghlan was speaking to the media yesterday ahead of the Tour and was happy to speak on the wider development of the Women’s game as well.
She was one of the former players who signed a letter last December that exposed a lack of confidence in how the game was developed and was something of a grenade on new CEO Kevin Potts’ desk when he was announced in that role, but Coghlan was happy with the way things have developed since.
“Kevin has done a really good job,” she said. “He took on the issues before stepping into the CEO role and he was fully engaged with those closest to it.
“With regards to the review of that World Cup qualifier, the IRFU have taken all of the recommendations on board and implemented them as well. So it wasn’t just saying yes, it was acting on it.”
“I think they’ve significantly acted on it, particularly with Gillian McDarby’s appointment as the head of pathways and then obviously the contracts.”
“There’s a lot of activity already and it’ll be interesting to see then what comes later with regard to governance and the rest of what will come in the overall review. It’ll be interesting to see.”
The provision of 43 professional and semi-professional contracts is obviously a major step forward.
“It’s fantastic and even when the review came in and there was a recommendation for contracts, I don’t think anyone thought that they would happen so quickly,” added Coghlan.
“The biggest thing was always recovery. Getting up, going to the gym in the morning and going to do a full day’s work, hitting the pitch in the evening as well, you weren’t in any way hitting the levels that you could have as an athlete.”
“The thing now is what players are offered and whether for some girls who are in careers, whether it will be enough or whether it will enable them to take time out for a period of time.”
“Everyone’s at a different level in life but if you offered it to me I would have bitten your hand off to take it no matter where I was in my career.”
The two test matches against Japan will both be televised live on TG4 on each of the next two Saturdays.
The new jerseys and training wear are on sale now in-store at Intersport Elverys and online via Elverys.ie and on Canterbury.com
