Young Centre Nic Dhonnacha To Captain Connacht Women

Éabha Nic Dhonnacha has been chosen to captain Connacht for the Vodafone Women’s Interprovincial Championship, which kicks off for Emer O’Dowd’s charges with a trip to Cork to play Munster this Sunday.

Centre Nic Dhonnacha may have only turned 21 last month, but head coach O’Dowd has no doubts about her new captain’s ability to lead the team given how well she has taken to playing at senior level.

“Éabha has a massive amount of experience coming into the squad a couple of years ago from the Connacht Under-18 set-up,” she said.

“In fairness, she leads from the front. She’s a character, she’s a Gaeilgeoir. The girls really listen to her, and they will rally around her.

“I know it was a really proud day when I made that phone call to her to say that we’d nominated her as captain.”

With Connacht missing some senior players due to Ireland commitments in advance of the Rugby World Cup, Nic Dhonnacha will take the captaincy reins from Nicole Fowley and Shannon Tierney, who were co-captains last season when the westerners finished the Interprovincial campaign in third place.

First coming to prominence with the Connacht and Ireland Under-18s, the Ros a’ Mhíl native began her rugby journey with the Carraroe-based An Ghaeltacht Rugbaí as a six-year-old, and has also played with Galway Corinthians and Tuam/Oughterard.

As a promising teenager, Nic Dhonnacha was brought into the IRFU’s inaugural WNTS (Women’s National Talent Squad) programme in 2022, the same year that she captained the Connacht U-18s, and played both 15s and Sevens with the Ireland U-18s.

She was Connacht’s U-18 Women’s Player of the Year in 2023, having made her senior debut for her home province the previous January. She was involved in the inaugural Six Nations Women’s Summer Series with the Ireland U-20s last year.

Along with rising through the ranks as an age-grade international player, the intelligent playmaker with a strong right boot has enjoyed notable success with UL Bohemian, helping them to win back-to-back Energia All-Ireland League titles, including scoring a try in the 2024 final.

O’Dowd brought together an enlarged group of players in Dangan in June to start Connacht’s preparations for the new season, before announcing an extended 56-strong squad for the Interprovincial Championship, mostly made up of the 44 players training week to week with the province.

They got some valuable match minutes into their legs recently with warm-up games against Ulster and Munster, and their upcoming Interpro fixtures include back-to-back outings at Dexcom Stadium where Ulster and defending champions Leinster will be the visitors on August 16 and 23, respectively.

Speaking about the mood in camp ahead of her second Interpros in charge of Connacht, she said: “A lot of nervous energy, to be brutally honest. I think from the management all right through to the players, we’ve built this programme up to be a big one for us.

“As I said towards the end of last season, last year’s Interprovincials, I think we have a very special group of players and we’ve trained really, really hard from the 12th of June.

“So, I suppose we can’t go out on the pitch and play for them. They have to do it, but we’ve put a lot of preparation in behind them, and I’m just really, really excited to head to Cork this weekend.”

Joining O’Dowd in the coaching group again this year are backs and attack coach Gavin Duffy, the ex-Connacht and Ireland full-back, defence coach Tommy Ellard, and forwards coach Doron McHugh.

Looking forward to the Championship opener away to Munster, she added: “We all know what Munster will bring. They’re a serious outfit led by a serious coaching ticket with Niamh Briggs and Matt Brown.

“But we’re not going down to participate anymore, we’re going down to put a performance together, and that performance, I think, will lead to something special.

“As I said, Munster are a renowned team, they have won the Interprovincial Series numerous times, but I think Connacht are getting there now, and I think we just need to have a small little bit of belief behind us.

“The young girls that we have coming through are all used to winning. The girls that we have in our panels are all used to winning.

“So that appetite to win, but also that mentality of winning, sort of breeds throughout the whole squad. So I’m really, really looking forward to going down and playing, and seeing how this team performs.”