World Cup A Hugely Rewarding Experience For Ireland Touch Rugby Teams
The Ireland Women's Open squad that competed at the Touch Rugby World Cup was led by head coach Kelsi McGrath and captain Lianna Prizeman
The 2024 Touch Rugby World Cup took place in Nottingham last month, and the Ireland Touch Association (ITA) sent seven squads to the competition.
It was the biggest Touch World Cup in history, with 39 participating nations sending over 180 teams to compete across 13 different divisions from Men’s and Women’s Open upwards.
The Ireland Men’s Open team, led by captain Seán Ballance, were taking part in their fourth World Cup. 19 teams from across the globe entered the Men’s Open division, and the teams were split into two pools with the top four finishers in each pool qualifying for the quarter-finals.
Ireland came fourth in Pool B with wins over South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and Wales, as well as draws against Fiji and Cook Islands to qualify for the last-eight.
For the first time in their history, the Ireland Men’s Open side got the opportunity to take on gold medal favourites Australia, an outfit containing Touch superstars such as Dylan Hennessy. The Emus had a convincing 14-1 victory, but not before Ireland had thrown the kitchen sink at them.
The Ireland Women’s Open team were competing in the World Cup for the first time ever. Despite their inexperience at this level, they impressed a lot of people with their performances.
The 21 teams in this division were split into two pools, and Ireland came seventh in Pool B with victories over the Philippines, the Netherlands, Samoa, Fiji, and Thailand qualifying them for the play-off for 14th place. They then dispatched Lebanon 11-2 to finish the tournament on a high.
Ireland’s Mixed Open squad were competing in the World Cup for the third time. Unlike the other Open teams, they do not have a core group who have played together over a number of tournaments.
They had a talented squad, nonetheless, with some very promising players such as Alex Cassidy and Ria Plunkett. They finished 22nd overall courtesy of wins over Spain, Portugal, and the Cayman Islands.
In the overage divisions, the Ireland Men’s 30s team performed very well, reaching the quarter-final stage and putting it up to New Zealand before going down 12-5. The Ireland Mixed 30s came 10th of 17 teams, a very strong performance for what was a new squad.
The Ireland Women’s 35s, meanwhile, finished seventh in a tough division, while the Men’s 45s secured ninth place out of 14 teams in their division thanks to a 7-3 win over Spain.
The game against Spain was notable for the fact that it marked a 100th cap for the legendary Frank Ennis (pictured below), the first Irish Touch Rugby player to reach that milestone.
Touch Rugby is one of the non-contact offerings the IRFU has available to its stakeholders. Touch Rugby is a seen as a great way to stay involved in the game and also for people who wish to try rugby without the contact element.
The benefits of high-level Touch for developing rugby players have also long been recognised in Australia and New Zealand, with players such as Rieko Ioane and Charlotte Caslick among many others having a strong background in Touch.
The IRFU and ITA signed a memorandum of understanding recently, committing to work together to develop the game of Touch Rugby in Ireland.
More details on Touch Rugby can be found here.
There are streams of World Cup games featuring all seven Irish Touch squads on the Federation of International Touch YouTube channel.
The latest Touch news can also be found at irelandtouch on Instagram, and on the Ireland Touch Association Facebook page.