‘Dannah’s Been A Really Good Weapon For Us’ – Steenson

Having worked closely with Ireland’s backs over the last year, Gareth Steenson is excited about the increasing influence of their kicking game, led by the classy left boot of young out-half Dannah O’Brien.

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O’Brien reached a quarter-century of international appearances against Scotland last Saturday, and for a player that has become so central to Ireland’s gameplan, it is easy to forget that she is still just 21 years of age.

The Tullow youngster made her debut for the Ireland Women (sponsored by Aon) as a teenager during the 2022 tour to Japan, and is set to make her Rugby World Cup bow against the Japanese side in the Pool C opener on Sunday, August 24.

The prodigious talent is growing in stature as a tactician and skilful distributor, along with landing some crucial place-kicks, including the match-winning conversion against New Zealand in WXV1 last September.

With a much-anticipated rematch with the Black Ferns during the final round of the World Cup pool stages, Ireland kicking coach Steenson has full confidence in the ability of O’Brien, and the team’s other kickers, to hurt opponents with their kicking out of hand.

“First of all, it’s a natural ability that’s in Dannah. To be honest, I could say there’s a lot more kickers out there on our team. It’s one thing I’ve noticed massively since I’ve come back, being away in England for so many years,” he said.

“The GAA players, the skill level right across the board, high-ball skills, all those elements. It’s fantastic to have that in the locker, and a lot of the girls actually have that.

“But from Dannah’s point of view, it probably gets highlighted a little bit more because she’s obviously playing the position she’s playing. When you have a strength like that, it’s just using it in that kind of a vein.

“So for us it’s about developing and getting her understanding of when is best to use it, how to use it, and when it becomes a little bit more of we’re actually looking at kicking at spaces and parts of the field and all that sort of thing.

“So her understanding has developed massively, I’ve noticed since being here and being able to work with her over the last year or so. But that’s also the girls on the outside, our outside backs as well have been working hard on that element too.

“There’s a development piece right across the board, but she’s been a really good weapon for us and hopefully she continues in that vein.”

Looking at the 2025 Guinness Women’s Six Nations statistics, O’Brien bounced back from missing three conversions against France to land 12 of her next 15 conversion attempts, including seven out of eight in the away win over Italy.

She finished as the Championship’s most frequent kicker out of hand, with 81 kicks in total for a mammoth 2667 metres. The only player to come close to her was Scotland’s Helen Nelson who tallied up 2152 metres from 63 kicks.

O’Brien was ever-present during the Six Nations, but showed her adaptability with the 9-10-12 axis changing quite a bit. Emily Lane and Aoibheann Reilly were her half-back partners for the earlier rounds, before Molly Scuffil-McCabe closed out the campaign alongside her.

Eve Higgins and Enya Breen battled it out for the inside centre role, and the latter, who was used as a replacement out-half during last week’s 27-21 victory over Scotland, will don the number 12 jersey for the visit of Canada to Belfast this Saturday (kick-off 12pm – tickets are available here).

With 70 Test caps between them, the trio of Reilly, O’Brien, and Breen will start against Canada, who are ranked second in the world. O’Brien is just delighted to be back in the green shirt and counting down the days to the start of her first World Cup.

“It’s great to get back into playing games,” she admitted. “I was happy enough (with the touchline conversion against Scotland). Disappointed about the other two (missed kicks). There’s stuff to work on and that’s one of them.

“I think it’s going to be another physical battle (against Canada), similar to Scotland. They’re really good athletes and I think we have to bring it to them. It’s going to be an exciting one.

“Hopefully we’ll have a big crowd in Belfast. It’s our last chance to grow our ‘Green Wave’ and hopefully bring a bit of that support over to England. We’re massively looking forward to it.”

As she gets more game-time, particularly playing against the top tier nations, O’Brien is looking more and more assured in the playmaking role, delivering on what Scott Bemand and his fellow coaches want her to do.

Her quick hands helped to set up Méabh Deely for Ireland’s opening try in Cork, and her invitingly flat pass also paved the way for Nancy McGillivray to score on her debut. Steenson says her hard work behind the scenes is paying off.

“Dannah’s maturity since I’ve come here is growing all the time, it’s a confidence piece. I’m even seeing it in how she carries herself around the room, how she talks, how she communicates with the rest of the players, which only adds to that kicking element.

“Her kicking has always been a super strength for Dannah, and sometimes working on your super strengths is a good thing.

“You know, you always remember why you got picked on the team, and you have to work on other elements. She’s developing that all the time, her understanding, her knowledge, but her whole game play.

“So when we sit down with the half-backs, we go through games, we talk about different scenarios, what may happen, what might come up, wind conditions, yellow cards, all these sort of things. There’s so many things that probably she’s never thought about, from that element.

“The growth piece, not even herself, Nicole (Fowley), all our 10s, all our half-backs, our nines. They’re all learning all the time and they’re so enthusiastic to learn, which for me, makes it so exciting to be in and around them,” he added.