After a turbulent couple of years post-covid, the Ireland women's team is finally going in the right direction.
A win on the final day of the Six Nations against Scotland guaranteed Ireland third place and a spot in the 2025 World Cup in England. It will be the first World Cup Ireland will have been in since 2017 after they failed to qualify for the last edition in 2022.
It's a huge step for women's rugby in Ireland as the sport has gained a lot of popularity at the grassroots level in recent years and with growing crowds it may be time to play games on bigger stages.
The three home games in this year's Six Nations were spread across the country in Musgrave Park, RDS and Ravenhill and it saw Ireland break their own attendance records in the process.
While speaking at the launch of the IRFU's strategic plan CEO Kevin Potts spoke about the success of those three matches.
We had three Six Nations games at home this year, record crowds, [and] each of the events made a small profit, which is very positive.
With record-breaking crowds people are now beginning to ask when games will be played in the Aviva Stadium.
The Republic of Ireland women's football team have started to play their home matches at the home of the Aviva, including their most recent game against Sweden. They've largely been a success and have attracted sizeable crowds.
Potts said that the idea of moving games to the Aviva have been discussed and that the move is a matter of when it will happen rather than if it will happen.
I had that discussion with the players last October,
There will come a point in the journey where they will want to play in the Aviva Stadium when they have a big crowd, and if the fans get behind the team, really get behind the team in the next number of years and we can get big numbers at the stadium, that’s when the players want to play and they can play.
There's no doubt the game is growing at every level and representation is a huge part of that. Young girls getting to see their heroes play at Lansdowne Road will only inspire them.
Hopefully the Ireland women's team can continue making the huge strides they've been making this year and eventually play at the home of Irish rugby.
