Hogan: We Have To Be Able To Fill Doro And Erin’s Boots

King and Wall both underwent surgery in April on their respective knee and Achilles tendon injuries, ruling them out of the upcoming World Cup in England when Ireland return to the global showpiece tournament for the first time since 2017.

The influential duo will be sorely missed given the high standards they reached during this past season, with King the reigning World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year, and Wall scoring three tries in five appearances in the recent Guinness Women’s Six Nations.

Hogan knows both players very well having followed in Wall’s footsteps by making her debut during the 2020 Six Nations, and similarly she has played 15s and Sevens international rugby with King, as well as in the colours of Old Belvedere and the Wolfhounds.

“They are such highly thought of individuals in our squad,” Hogan told the RTÉ Rugby Podcast. “Speaking about Dorothy, she’s been around for the past six or seven years. I was in the same squad as her in Parma when we failed to qualify for the last World Cup.

“I’m just absolutely heartbroken for the pair of them. It’s one of those things that you can’t take for granted, like seeing them around HPC (the IRFU High Performance Centre) at the moment, they’re still absolutely buzzing for the squad. They’re still involved in things, they’re still wishing us well.

“That just goes to show off the pitch how strong our culture actually is. ‘Doro’ and Erin don’t care who is on the pitch, they just want the team to succeed and do well, and they’re going to do everything that they can to do so.”

Injuries are unfortunately part and parcel of the game, and as devastating a blow it was to lose both King and Wall, the inclusion of the likes of co-captain Sam Monaghan, Béibhinn Parsons, and Eimear Corri in the World Cup preparation squad has given Ireland a timely boost.

The returning trio are looking to bounce back from long injury lay-offs just like Aoibheann Reilly did in recent months. The Ballinasloe native put her second ACL injury behind her to feature three times during the Six Nations.

Under the watchful eyes of Scott Bemand and his coaching staff, including new defence coach James Scaysbrook, the Ireland Women (sponsored by Aon) are currently in the second week of their pre-season regime at their Blanchardstown base.

The current group is made up of 37 players, but the squad announcement at the end of May did note that head coach Bemand may call up additional players during these summer training blocks. The World Cup squad size is capped at 32.

Hogan admitted: “People who have been injured for a long period of time coming back in, like Aoibheann, it makes it so much sweeter when you see people coming back into the environment and working and grafting so hard in the background. It just shows you how much the green jersey means.

“Sometimes, I know it’s not forgotten but there will be some days, like our ‘tough Thursday’ session, you’ll be blowing out your backside, and then you’ll see Sam who is literally returning on the sideline, doing her rehab runs. She’s so close to being back.

“Tash (Behan) is so close to being back, just there cheering you on, and it’s just like they are working so hard because they want to be where we are. So we cannot take that for granted for a minute, for a day, for a second.

“Especially whenever we run out at the World Cup, we’re going to be thinking about ‘Doro’ and Erin, but the way that they have trained during the Six Nations, the way that they produced the foundations for example of our lineout, and now we’re just reaching to make sure we don’t miss them on the pitch.

“We can’t afford to miss them whenever we want to succeed. We have to be able to fill their boots, and it’s just really exciting.

“We’re obviously heartbroken for the two of them, and it’s kind of a little bit scary that this actually could happen to anybody, so let’s just make sure that we enjoy every single second of it.”

Hogan has had a front row seat to Ireland’s resurgence under Bemand, having played in all 17 Tests since he took over in 2023. The Down native was ever-present in the number 8 shirt from the WXV3 title-winning campaign through to last autumn’s memorable WXV1 run.

She added five more caps during the recent Six Nations, taking his career haul to 32 with three starts at blindside flanker, one in the number 8 position, and a try-scoring performance off the bench against Italy.

Bonus point wins away to Italy and Wales were the highlights of Ireland’s 2025 Championship, along with how they ran France close in Belfast, and gave Grand Slam winners England one of their toughest tests, before the game in Cork got away from them during the final half-an-hour.

Coupled with their autumn victories over reigning World champions New Zealand, Australia, and the USA, Hogan says the group are determined to build on those displays over the last year, which have seen Bemand’s charges climb to their current world ranking of fifth.

“We have been considered underdogs in the past and people wouldn’t respect us or wouldn’t know exactly the style we play in defence or attack, our tactics, etc. Even at the start, when Scott came in, people didn’t realise how good our team was.

“Once we started believing in each other, once we developed a good culture off the field that wanted to work hard for each other on the field, our tactics kind of married up and it got some performances on the pitch that we were very, very proud of.

“That takes away the element of surprise and I suppose in the Six Nations, we did come away pretty disappointed afterwards (with a third place finish).

“Because we were so successful in WXV and the way that we were growing, and the trajectory we were going on, our goal was to achieve that one place higher, to beat Scotland at the end.

“But we can’t fault what we did, the glimpses of excellence that we had. We were so close to beating France, who we might meet in the World Cup, which is really important for us, to know we could beat them.

“That just gives us that confidence. Yes, okay, they beat us, but we’re still confident that if we met them in the World Cup, we would be able to do a job.

“Listen, the first 50 minutes against England, if that doesn’t give you confidence, I don’t know what would. We really held it up to those two teams at the very start.”

Hogan and her team-mates also learned a lot from their 26-19 final round loss to Scotland. They host their Celtic rivals in their opening Summer Series fixture at Virgin Media Park on Saturday, August 2, an important staging post just three weeks before the start of the World Cup.

“I don’t know if it was complacency within the squad, but Scotland were just really up for that game, and full credit to them. They performed exceptionally on the day.

“We, of course, had a couple of HIAs and a couple of things didn’t go our way that day, but no excuses. Everybody’s there from 1 to 36, and we all need to perform on the pitch and we’re all coached to perform on the pitch.

“It was just one of those days you can learn from and get over, but yes, we’re still pretty confident after it,” added the 26-year-old.

Ahead of their opening Pool C clash with Japan in Northampton on Sunday, August 24, Ireland will play Scotland in Cork, and then Canada, the world’s second-ranked team, at Kingspan Stadium on Saturday, August 9.

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