‘We’ll Go Hell For Leather For Next Few Weeks’ – Kelly On Tullow’s Relegation Battle

The numbers do not lie, and yet they never quite tell the whole story. Thirty-two defeats in succession is a stark statistic for any team to carry.

It follows you from pitch to pitch, across provinces, into changing rooms, and back onto buses for long journeys home. It hangs in the air when a new match begins and lingers when it ends. It becomes, in the eyes of others, a verdict.

But inside Tullow Rugby Club, that number has never been the full story. Not for their captain Grace Kelly, not for the players who continue to lace up their boots each week, and not for the small Carlow club that refuses to let defeat define it.

With four rounds of the regular season remaining in the Energia All-Ireland League Women’s Division, Tullow sit at the foot of the table on three points. Survival is still mathematically possible. Belief, stubborn, hard-earned belief is beginning to grow again.

And in the aftermath of their most recent performance, a gritty, defiant 12-5 loss away to top four regulars Old Belvedere that yielded a bonus point, something shifted.

“We were delighted coming out of there with a losing bonus point,” Kelly told IrishRugby.ie. “I wouldn’t say, not that we didn’t expect it, but it just, I don’t know what happened up there in Old Belvedere, but we just went hell for leather and we’ve nothing to lose.”

It was a performance forged in defiance. Conditions were heavy at Ollie Campbell Park, the pitch mucky and rain-soaked on that Friday night, but Tullow refused to be overrun.

Instead, Steven Hogg’s charges met one of the league’s strongest teams head-on, matching them tackle for tackle, phase for phase.

There was frustration too. While in other games they returned to their dressing room disappointed by performances that led to heavy defeats, there was the sense that even more was there for the taking.

“Our defence was unbelievable. We’ve been working really, really hard on the little bits and to try and tighten it all up. But I thought we actually did really, really well in defence, especially.

“I think maybe the two tries that Old Belvedere got were probably were not handy tries, they weren’t difficult enough tries either. So, I do think there’s a lot, there was an awful lot to take away from that game.”

For a team that has spent much of the last two seasons chasing shadows, conceding heavily and struggling to put scores on the board, that night at the Anglesea Road venue felt different from the outset.

Tullow struck first, with number 8 Lauryn Faulkner crossing the whitewash after just 10 minutes. A big score to lead against a top four aide for the first time.

That early score did more than move numbers on a scoreboard. It lit a spark. Defeat would follow, however, as Emily Byrne’s brace of tries helped Fiona Hayes’ side to emerge victorious in the end.

“I think it’s the first match in I don’t know how long, maybe even the first, we’ve scored first, you know,” Kelly says with a smile. “We were all kind of looking at each other like, what is going on here?

“Because especially a top four team, the scores haven’t been that nice in the last few as well, so it was great. Like, I think it gave everybody the push that we needed to keep driving on and to keep going for the 80 minutes.

“Because we had said we’re used to building for the first 20 (minutes), working hard for the first 20 and then the second 20 of the first half dies off. But I felt like in the ‘Belvo game, we worked for the whole 80 minutes and there was a lot more belief and a lot more want there.”

Belief. Want. Pride. These are the currencies that have kept Tullow going when results have not. The losing bonus point, their third point of the campaign was the tangible reward. But it was also something else – validation.

“A part of us obviously was delighted that we got a losing bonus point. But then another part, you’re like, I think we could have got more out of that game. Like, it was there as well and for us to build on as well.

“We were unfortunate that we didn’t get more out of the game, but even that one losing bonus point was great.”

Now attention turns to the end-of-season run-in, and four games that will define Tullow’s immediate future as an All-Ireland League club. First up, heavyweights Railway Union arrive at Rathoe Road this weekend with title ambitions of their own.

After that comes a trip west to Galwegians, then a home meeting with Cooke that already feels like a relegation decider, before their 2025/26 campaign closes with a visit to Ennis in late March.

Kelly is under no illusions about the scale of the challenge, but nor is she prepared to concede anything. It is not about surrender. It is about building, sharpening, and preparing, as Tullow aim to show their usual resilience.

“We know what Railway are like, everybody knows what Railway are like. We need to build on the little things and start trying to work. Playing against Railway, we’ll try and build ourselves for the next three games after that, which are massive for us in Tullow.

“They are three games that we’re going to have to really go after, three games that we’re going to really have to target if we’re going to stay up.

“Railway, let it be like, go out, try to get through the game and try to even get something out of the game. There’s no harm in saying we can’t get anything out of the game either.

“Try and build, try and work, and try and tighten up a few little things that we’ve been doing in our training and just try and work hard in order to put us in a good position to go into the next game.

“Galwegians and then we’ve Cooke at home and then we’ve Ennis. The ‘Belvo game has given us massive belief that we can definitely get something (from the final few matches).”

She added: “I don’t want to look too far ahead and I’m trying to concentrate on each game as they come. We don’t want to be worrying about something, we need to concentrate on what we have now.

“But (Cooke at home) it is a must-win game, for us especially. And like leading up to that game now, we do need to try and pick up an odd losing bonus point here or there, get a win or something, but that is the big one. That will be our final.”

In the Tullow camp, the Old Belvedere performance has already taken on a significance that goes beyond the table. It was a reminder, perhaps the clearest yet, that despite their results over the last 18 months being tough to take, they belong at this level.

“I think after the match in Old Belvedere, we were all kind of looking at each other like, did that just happen? You know, we were like, what?

“And I think even finishing the game, looking in group chats, the fixtures group chats, and our own group chat, and people being like, ‘Jeez, this is amazing, it’s great’.

“And then I think girls were like, it started to kind of click with them then that we are well able to play rugby. We are well able to play up here. We just need to come together in order to try and finish something.”

Injuries have crept in again, as they did last year, testing depth and resilience. But Kelly’s message to her team-mates has not changed.

“I just keep telling the girls we’ll be grand. We will go hell for leather now for the next few weeks and just see what happens.”

That phrase, hell for leather has become something of a mantra. It speaks to a freedom that comes when there is nothing left to lose, when fear is replaced by opportunity.

If Tullow are to produce the results they need, that freedom will be essential. There is a deeper layer to this fight, though. One that extends beyond this season’s league placings.

For Kelly, for her team-mates, and for the club itself, this is about more than avoiding relegation. It is about the future of Women’s rugby in Tullow, a club that has produced some standout talents in the past like Ireland internationals Ciara Cooney, Dannah O’Brien, and Katie Corrigan.

“There’s some really good girls coming through the Under-18s. I think Tullow have been unfortunate in years before, we’ve had really good girls come up through the ranks and not being an AIL club at the time, they just go elsewhere.

“There’s some really, really talented girls on the way, and I just think it would be great for Tullow to keep an AIL team in order to let those girls feed in and just build it as an AIL squad.”

It is a vision rooted in continuity, in community, in the idea that success should not have to be pursued somewhere else. That togetherness is not theoretical. It has been tested, repeatedly, over the past two seasons.

The numbers again. The weight of them. But also, the resilience behind them. Progress, measured not just in results, but in competitiveness, in belief, in the small details that build towards something larger.

“Look, unfortunately we mightn’t have a say or whatever, hopefully we do. But like, whatever happens, happens and we just have to stick together.

“Tullow, we’ve showed up every single game. Last year we went 18 games straight and some of those beatings were good beatings. This year now it’s 14. I know we have three points which is great, and we’re scoring this year. I think that’s a big thing as well.

“Like last year it would have been zero, zero, zero. This year it’s like, okay we’re putting points on the board, we’re improving.

“We’ve now got three points on the table, three points more than we had last year. But I just think we have more to give and I just think we need to start giving it now. We’ve only four more games.”

For all the challenges, there is pride. Fierce, unshakeable pride in what Tullow represents.

“Tullow is only a small club in Carlow, but it’s a great club, and the girls, we all love playing there. We love playing with each other. And I think that’s what keeps us all, and the people around us…it keeps us going.”

It is that love for the jersey, for each other, for the club, that has kept this group together when it would have been easier to drift away.

Now, that pride and belief must translate into points, into performances, into something tangible that can keep Tullow at the top table of Women’s club rugby in Ireland.

The run-in begins this weekend, at home, against one of the best teams in the country. The odds will be against them. The table will say what it says. The streak will still be there, until it is not.

But inside Tullow RFC, under the captaincy of the ever-reliable Kelly, the story is not yet finished. Four fixtures remain. Four chances to change everything.

“I think for a squad to stick together as well as we have done, I think it’s just exceptional in itself,” she remarked.

“I think there is an awful lot of pride there and I think there’s an awful lot of belief now, especially after we spoke about the last game against ‘Belvo.

“I do think, well I hope anyway that bit of pride and belief and then drive comes in the next four games. And at the end of the day, we’ve nothing to lose. We just need to go hell for leather and give it socks.”

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