Scott Bemand has made a host of changes to his side to take on Italy in the 2nd round of the Guinness Women's Six Nations which is taking place in the RDS this weekend
The front row trio of Linda Djougang, Neve Jones and Christy Haney remain unchanged going into the weekend.
Skipper Sam Monaghan returns and replaces Hannah O’Connor in the 2nd row. Grace Moore comes into the back row as Aoife Wafer replaces co-captain Edel McMahon on the opposite flank while Brittany Hogan remains at 8.
After a good performance last weekend Aoibheann Reilly keeps her spot as scrum half and is joined by Dannah O'Brien at out half as she is given her first start of the competition over Nicole Fowley who is named on the bench.
Enya Breen also makes her long awaited return from injury as she teams up with Eve Higgins in a new look centre partnership.
Corrigan, Delany and Parsons round things out as they retain their back three positions after last weekend's outing.
Eimear Corri joins Sarah Delaney, Niamh O'Dowd, Sadhbh McGrath and Fiona Tuite as replacement forwards, while Aoife Dalton is named alongside Nicole Fowley and Molly Scuffle-McCabe as replacement backs.
'This is a selection for Italy'
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Speaking about the announcement Bemand said:
We've made a selection that we believe has put us in the best place to beat the Italians. Part of where we want to get to is to benefit the competition in the group. The girls have been competing hard, so yes there was some tough conversations. But they understand where the group is and where we need to be and as we move towards professionalism we will pick the strongest groups game by game, so this is a selection for Italy. It definitely doesn't rule people out going forward.
Speaking about what Enya Breen's return brings to the table, Bemand noted how crucial she will be in their attack this weekend.
So we got to get our game going this weekend. We got to play in the right areas. So Enya's pretty key to that. Obviously she has been out for a good while so her coming back into the fold, the couple of things she brings you know like her kicking game has been really good for us. How she's been going in training and how she's been bringing to life that side of the game has been really important. She's also just a good baller, she's a good games player. A triple threat, she can carry, distribute and kick. She can spot good opportunities and bring them to life so look she gets the nod over Aoife (Dalton).
Speaking about Dalton's surprise omission from the starting 15 Bemand said
Aoife didn't do anything wrong last week. Aoife's a really important player for us, it's just the split of how we think the game will go. We think we could be in a strong position to start with Enya and then bring in Aoife to the fray when the time is right."
With ticket sales reaching almost a record number it is truly gearing up to being a very exciting clash in the RDS this Sunday.
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