Pearse Relishing Railway Battle As ‘Two Heavyweights Go Head-To-Head’

A repeat of last season’s Energia All-Ireland League Women’s Division final takes place at Annacotty on Saturday, as defending champions UL Bohemian lock horns with current table toppers Railway Union (kick-off 3pm).

Whenever these two face off it is always an entertaining spectacle. A closely-fought game between the two top teams in the country from last season gave us a high-scoring thrillride of a final at the Aviva Stadium back in April.

Four times the pair met last season, with UL Bohs prevailing in three of those encounters, one a closely-fought clash on the banks of the Mulcair River in Annacotty.

Coached by former Ireland prop Fiona Hayes, UL began the new season with a 31-15 bonus point win over Blackrock College (watch the match back in full on irishrugby+), and along with facing Railway this weekend, they meet Old Belvedere in a tricky opening run of fixtures.

Captain Chloe Pearse believes this will be another tight contest on Saturday, and with the opening block a lot different to last year, teams will have to start strong to avoid playing catch up. She said:

Two kind of heavyweights in Women’s rugby at the moment going head-to-head, what better time than second game of the season to really challenge yourself?

“Looking forward to it but, as I always say, it’s going to be a close game, and whoever makes the least mistakes maybe is going to come out on top.

Last year the run-in looked a bit different, this year we have that top four from last season in the first three games, which makes it a real, ‘you have to start strong’.

“You don’t want to be playing catch-up for the season. We will be looking to start strong but it is only game two, it’s a long season.

“But we will get down to Annacotty. It’s been a long time since I got to play there since last year, just with games being cancelled and things like that.

“Really looking forward to getting down. Three o’clock kick-off, hopefully the weather is good, not like last year when we played them in Annacotty. It was desperate.”

Pearse has been a stalwart for UL Bohs, one of just five players still putting on the jersey from the 2018 squad that won back-to-back All-Ireland League titles. The others are her partner Clodagh O’Halloran, Stephanie Nunan, Rachel Allen and the currently-injured Nicole Cronin.

While Pearse has been a mainstay of the club game down through the years, it was not the first sport she gravitated towards. In her early years she played soccer as she loved going out and kicking a ball around with the boys where she grew up.

Rugby started to come into the picture, and when a girls team was set up in St. Mary’s RFC in Limerick, by the Nunans, the parents of her friend Shauna and current Bohs and Munster team-mate Stephanie, she never looked back.

Recalling her early days playing rugby, including an infamous tackle on one of her friend’s cousins, Pearse explained: “My dad would have played soccer, would have played GAA growing up, and all I ever did was go out and kick a ball with the lads, like playing soccer and whatever.

“Then like that, soccer went from that to a little bit of rugby with all the boys and sure I’d be in the middle of it. I had a friend who had a cousin, his name was Johnny Appletree. I’ll be killed for saying his name!

“He was about six foot, and Johnny was just running anyway and I just chopped him in half, and everyone was looking. I was only 12 at the time, chopping this 18-year-old in half!

“Then St. Mary’s started an underage girls team and I went to school with Shauna, who is Stephanie’s older sister. Her Mom and Dad had started it.

“She knew that I was a bit of a tomboy played soccer and they asked me to come down, and I was humming and hawing because soccer was going well – I had been in a couple of Irish squads.

“I just said, ‘you know something, I’ll go down and I’ll give it a go’, and I went down on the Wednesday and then I was out in Shannon playing with St. Mary’s on a Saturday, scored four tries and never looked back.”

She added: “Since then I just fell in love with the game, fell in love with the physicality, the team aspect. I was playing in goals in soccer, so it was very different, bit more isolation.

“So, then that rugby kind of camaraderie and that extra bit of having the team beside you really stood to me. That’s 18 years ago now at this point – I am really showing my age! – but never looked back, loved it since.”

Along with managing traffic off the field with her job as a Business Development Team Lead with Uber, the Red Robins skipper plays a key role in the Bohs squad.

As mentioned previously, Hayes’ charges lost a number of their more experienced players in the last few years, including Ireland-capped prop Fiona Reidy who retired after the league decider last season.

However, Bohs have a high-quality crop of younger players who have represented their province, and Ireland at underage level, and are knocking on the door of Ireland senior caps in the near future.

Speaking about that emerging talent and their accelerated growth as players, Pearse highlighted the impact the young guns have had, including the 19-year-old Beth Buttimer (pictured above) and Eilís Cahill (22) in their front row.

“It’s class, like Beth’s only 19. She turned 19 during the Interpross and it’s like she has been here for years. She is definitely a stalwart in our set-piece, our lineout, and our scrum. She dotted two down last week which was super.

“Then, obviously, the big story last year was Fiona Reidy retiring. Playing for Bohs at tighthead for 12 years and how would we replace her? She put the work in to find that replacement herself, and thankfully we have that in Eilís, who has played with us for a couple of years as well.

“She switched to loosehead when Fiona was there, but has now gone back to her natural position at tighthead. She had a fantastic Interpros as well.

“Unfortunately she was injured for the final last year, but she is just so competitive so it’s great to have someone like her step up when you lose someone of the calibre that Fiona had.”

Back in the UL squad this season is Orla Curtin, who lined out for the Red Robins a number of seasons ago but had stepped away for personal reasons. Capped at underage and senior level for Munster, Pearse says the group were delighted to see Curtin make her return.

“It’s brilliant, Orla had her own reasons for having to step away and things like that. When she came back this season, I think everyone was just delighted to see her.

“She has a couple of Munster underage caps, she was capped with the senior team. Covid hit and there was a couple of bits, but just brilliant to have her back playing.

“She’s a great kid and I think, like that, having another very strong hooker for a bit of healthy competition with Beth as well is super for us to have. If we were stuck, I’d stick Orla in the back row, you wouldn’t shy away from it.

“She’s quite physical, she’s great at ball-carrying, very good at the breakdowns, and it was super having her back last week. Just looking to see her kick on now for the season and most importantly enjoy it while she does.”

All eyes are now on their seccond round showdown with Railway Union on Saturday. The Dubliners make the trip to Limerick on the back of a hugely dominant 57-0 win over Old Belvedere at home.

Pearse and her team-mates also left the capital with an opening victory last weekend, bouncing back from a slow start against Blackrock to really come to life, scoring five tries in the process.

The seven-times capped Ireland international was not overly happy with Bohs’ performance at Stradbrook despite the outcome. With work ongoing at training to improve on that display, they are looking forward to coming up against fast-starting Railway.

“Unfortunately sometimes that just happens. You give away a couple of penalties, and they are able to kick up the line and get a bit of territory and then end up getting over,” she said, reflecting on the Blackrock game which saw them trail 8-0 initially.

“I think once we kind of got a handle after that, we definitely kicked on and we got a much better grip on the game. We were disappointed to concede at the end because the defence had been solid for that kind of middle period, that middle 50 minutes.

We’ll take confidence but I think coming away with a bonus point win, we weren’t necessarily happy with a lot of how the game went from ourselves. We know our attack can be much better and we would expect it to be much better.

“We started last night (Tuesday) with a good bit of work on that, and Thursday night then we’ll kick on as well. Definitely know the threats that Railway pose.

“A couple of new players, a couple of new names we didn’t really know so we will be keeping an eye out for them. It’s just a battle of physicality really. Win the physicality battle and hopefully we can score some tries out wide.”

Pearse continued: “We don’t exactly have everyone that we had last year either, we’ve a couple of injuries but we also have a couple of girls stepping up. Two young props, Grainne Burke and Saoirse Crowe, and Saoirse got on the scoresheet last weekend.

“She’s an exciting player coming up for us as well. Grainne is the same, she played a little bit with us last year, was a little bit hampered by injury for the Interpros, so didn’t get to see her in a Munster jersey. She had a great game last week, a very strong ball carrier.

“While they will have new players, we will have players they won’t have seen as well. And along with that we will rely on our own reliables, Claire Bennett, Alana McInerney out wide. I think there is threat all over the park for both teams.”