Leading the Irish women’s touch rugby team into battle

A County Galway woman is to captain the first ever Ireland women’s open touch rugby team to take part in this weekend’s Home Nations International Tournament – also featuring England, Scotland and Wales – in DCU in Glasnevin, Dublin.

Although Carmel Mannion, a native of Aggard, Craughwell, has been playing tag rugby for some years, she only joined a friend in taking up the other code of touch last August. Since then, she has competed in the inaugural Galway Touch League, which has just finished for the Summer, and graduated onto the Irish squad.

Mannion is just one of a number of local based players who have made the panel of 15, with Renmore’s Nicola Corcoran and Cork native and adopted Galway woman Catriona de Paor the others. The side is coached by Greg Muller, the New Zealander who lives in Barna, and managed by another New Zealander, Mele Tuimauga-Kiripati.

In any event, when Ireland line out against old rivals England this Friday afternoon, it will be an historic occasion for touch rugby in this country. The game has only been played in Ireland since 2007 although the game originated in Australia almost half a century ago.

As for this part of the world, touch rugby made its formal introduction to the West with the foundation of the Galway League last year and it is a measure of just how far the game has come that Mannion and her colleagues have nailed down places in the international side.

Mannion says that, along with Coach Muller, a lot of the credit must go to Jenny McHale and Conor Slack who set up the league in Galway in 2012. “So, we have a league going every week and tonight (last Monday) is the last night of the league for the Summer and then we will start up again in September,” explains the 32-year-old national schoolteacher.

“The numbers are down during the Summer because a lot of people obviously play tag rugby out in Corinthians but, yeah, we had 10 teams playing in the Winter and Spring leagues. Not as many now. We have six to eight playing up to this point in the Summer.”

The Craughwell native, who lives in the City, outlines that touch rugby is not a million miles away from tag but that there are distinct differences. The obvious, of course, is the tag which she says can slow up the game in comparison to the touch.

“Also, in touch, everyone – there are six on the team – has to be back on side. It is a lot more strategic than tag I find. You always have to think about the move ahead and another move to come after that. It is all about the plays.

“Also, you can dive (for the try) and you don’t roll back the ball when it is a turnover – it is just back through the legs. It is a lot faster I find than tag anyway and if you ever saw Australia or New Zealand play on YouTube, you would get an idea of just how fast the game can be played.”

For Mannion’s part, she was always into running – “but not competitive or anything” – while in recent years she had taken up tag rugby. It was through the friends she made in this discipline that led her to touch.

“I would previously have played tag with Nicola (Corcoran) and she introduced it to me and then when I was away (in Australia), Nicola had been on a tag team with Catriona and that is how she got involved,” details Mannion.

“So, we all went to Dublin in January for trials and basically that is how we got on the team. So, it is great, particularly when you think that it hasn’t been set up a year. Added to that, the whole men’s 30s team, which will be also be competing in the Home Nations, is based in Galway.

“So, that is a massive achievement and, again, we are not even a year up and running. We have got a full-team (men’s 30s) and then we have six others in a national squad. That is very impressive.”

Indeed, the men’s 30s side is captained by Conor Slack while vice captain is Mannion’s boyfriend, Alan O’Riordan. Meanwhile, Nicola Corcoran’s brother Johnny is part of the men’s open outfit as is Dave Keogh.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.