The first year of Irish Rugby’s Women and Girls strategy offers plenty to encourage Lynne Cantwell. There is also enough unfinished business to ensure nobody in the game mistakes progress for completion.
Speaking to Sport for Business for our latest podcast, the IRFU’s Head of Women’s Strategy pointed first to the development of the provincial pathways for players aged between 16 and 23 as perhaps the most important structural advance of the opening year.
The ambition is to give talented and motivated players regular access to better coaching, training and performance support while retaining their connection to clubs, schools and universities.
“I think I’m most excited about that because that is really relevant, that targets our teenage girls,” Cantwell told us.
The objective is ultimately for girls arriving at senior representative level to have already had years of appropriate rugby, athletic and medical development, rather than having to make up ground when they reach the elite game.
Cantwell described the ideal as creating an environment in which a 13, 14 or 15-year-old can enjoy rugby, keep coming back and, where the ambition exists, access the quality coaching and support required to see how far her talent can take her.
Turning Big Days Into Lasting Fans
The other standout from year one was more visible.
The staging of the Women’s Six Nations game at the Aviva Stadium drew a crowd of more than 31,000 and, Cantwell revealed, was the product of an eight-month project that looked well beyond what happened on the field.
The IRFU examined the fan experience created around the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, including bringing tournament Managing Director Sarah Massey into its own review process.
Lessons were applied across hospitality, the fan zone, music, accessibility and the relationship between the players and supporters.
“We were very targeted,” Cantwell said. “We wanted to deliver an event that was family-friendly, that was targeted towards fans of the women and girls game… to help people go, have a great time, come away saying, ‘I want to go back’, but more importantly, ‘I felt really welcomed there’.”
That extended to practical elements including access for buggies and breastfeeding rooms, as well as making the players themselves accessible before and after the game.
The work is continuing, with the Six Nations review now feeding into planning for future international windows, and details of the 2027 Guinness Women’s Six Nations fixtures against England and France to be published in the coming weeks.
Participation Remains the Bigger Challenge
Converting the national team’s heightened profile into a significant rise in playing numbers remains more difficult.
Participation grew by four per cent over the year. That is positive, but below the ten per cent annual growth target contained within the strategy.
Cantwell did not shy away from the gap.
There was, she said, a bounce in introductory programmes and registrations following Ireland’s World Cup performances. The challenge comes in ensuring clubs have the capacity, facilities, volunteers and structures to welcome those new players and keep them.
That means everything from recruiting coaches and team managers to providing appropriate changing facilities, understanding female health and ensuring that a girl arriving at a rugby club for the first time finds an environment that makes her want to return.
“When we talk about how do we increase from four per cent to ten per cent, I think that circles back to resourcing,” Cantwell said.
More staff on the ground, better support for clubs and stronger understanding of the differences between building women and girls pathways and simply replicating structures developed for men and boys will all be needed.
“Definitely it has to continue to be the target, but absolutely it’s not there yet.”
Schools represent another major opportunity.
Cantwell highlighted that 23 counties were represented within Ireland’s World Cup squad, evidence of a player base already developing beyond rugby’s traditional strongholds.
The IRFU has begun looking more closely at how rugby can build a stronger footprint in primary and secondary schools, learning in part from the GAA’s embedded presence.
There are signs of progress. Cantwell pointed to Munster, where participation in one girls’ Junior Cup structure has grown from three teams to 16.
But rugby is competing for attention. Football, Gaelic games and newer initiatives such as NFL Flag are all looking for a place within increasingly crowded school sporting programmes.
“The opportunity within schools is really significant,” Cantwell said, with the IRFU now considering how rugby might connect not only through sport but across elements of the wider curriculum.
Big Brands Providing Confidence
From a Sport for Business perspective, one of the most striking developments has been the strengthening commercial proposition around the women’s game.
Vodafone moving onto the front of the Ireland Women’s jersey and Dublin Airport becoming a partner provide both funding and substantial consumer-facing visibility.
Cantwell believes that matters beyond the individual deals themselves.
“What it’s demonstrating is confidence within big brands and connecting to the purpose of, yes, Irish rugby, but Irish women and girls rugby.”
Vodafone’s reach can amplify the team around major fixtures and campaigns, while its core brand positioning around connection aligns neatly with the strategy’s ambition to build stronger communities around women’s rugby.
There is also a wider signalling effect.
“It’s also the confidence, I think, that it gives to corporate Ireland that a big brand like Vodafone are backing the future of the women’s and girls game.”
Cantwell believes the commercial potential remains largely untapped.
“We haven’t scratched the surface of what’s possible for women and girls sport and women and girls rugby. I think the next decade is going to be really significant.”
Broadcast Still Has Ground to Make Up
Not every visibility indicator is moving at the same pace.
Cantwell admitted disappointment that the upcoming Ireland game against the USA at Tallaght Stadium will not have linear television coverage.
Streaming is an important part of the future, particularly in reaching younger audiences, but she was clear that widespread free-to-air visibility remains important.
“We have to continue to lobby and advocate for more progress,” she said, broadening the point beyond rugby to women’s sport generally.
“We know that it’s really, really important” to have linear coverage, she added, while recognising the opportunity presented by the continuing growth of streaming.
The Volunteers Who Make Strategy Real
Perhaps the clearest reminder that strategies do not implement themselves has come from Cantwell’s roadshows with clubs around the country.
She repeatedly returned to the importance of volunteers.
“They are the heartbeat of every sport.”
For the volunteers working within individual clubs, she believes simply getting into a room with others facing similar challenges can provide energy and reassurance. For the IRFU, listening to those experiences provides the reality check against which national plans have to be measured.
Those conversations offer inspiration, but also realism.
“You do also come away overwhelmed that, jeez, there’s so much to do,” she admitted.
That, Cantwell believes, is precisely why having a strategy matters: it provides the framework to decide what matters most, measure progress annually and adjust when something is not working.
SPORT FOR BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
The strongest element of the first year may be that the strategy is being treated as a living programme rather than a document published and placed on a shelf.
The four per cent participation growth against a ten per cent ambition is a useful reminder of how difficult genuine system change can be. Visibility can move rapidly through a World Cup, a record crowd or a major sponsorship. Building coaches, volunteers, facilities, school connections and player pathways takes longer.
The opportunity is that Irish women’s rugby now has all of those elements moving at the same time.
Commercial confidence is increasing, the national team has greater visibility, pathways are being strengthened, and the areas where progress is slower are being openly identified.
Success will be measured by whether those individual gains begin to reinforce one another over the coming years.
Listen to the full Sport for Business Podcast conversation with Lynne Cantwell wherever you get your podcasts or from here
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Image Credit: Irish Rugby
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