‘It Was So Emotional’ – O’Brien On Tullow’s Maiden #EnergiaAIL Win

There are wins that count for four points on a league table, and there are wins that feel as though they shift something deeper in a club’s bloodstream. Tullow’s 12-7 victory at home to Cooke last Saturday firmly belongs in the second category.

It was their first winning performance in the Energia All-Ireland League Women’s Division after 34 successive defeats, and a huge release of pressure, frustration, and accumulated hurt of almost two years trying to get that elusive result.

When the final whistle was blown at Blackgates, the sense of relief was almost overwhelming for Steven Hogg’s side. Everyone seemed to understand that they had not simply won a game. They had held the line long enough to change the conversation around the County Carlow club.

No one felt that more acutely than Alex O’Brien. She has worn a Tullow jersey all her rugby life. She has been there since 2008, when their Women’s team was first formed, and she has lived every phase of its journey – the early developmental years, the incremental growth, the climb through the grades, the first exposure to the All-Ireland League, the relegation that wasn’t, the reprieve, and now this difficult, defiant attempt to stay alive at the top level.

“It was so emotional, to be honest,” she told IrishRugby.ie. “I didn’t think the ref’s whistle was ever going to blow for the final whistle. It was the hardest 10 minutes in the end.

“Cooke were attacking strong and we were just trying to hold on for dear life really. Because obviously we got ahead early in the second half, the whistle went and I just remember thinking thank God that’s over, because it was such a physical battle as well.

“I suppose 34 losses and finally getting a win, but it wasn’t the way we wanted it. We were hoping to keep Cooke from the losing bonus point and help us for the game against Ennis.

“But listen, that’s the next hurdle now (this Saturday). It is a huge game again and we’d be hoping to turn up anyway and at least put in a huge performance there, the same as Cooke.”

That last sentence matters, because for all the joy, Tullow know the job is not done. Their first win has not guaranteed safety. In one sense, it has only sharpened the stakes for what comes next.

They travel to Ennis this weekend knowing that another victory, combined with a Wicklow win over Cooke, would preserve their place in the All-Ireland League. A defeat, on the other hand, would leave them bottom and facing a relegation play-off.

So even in celebration, there was no luxury of total release. The tension remained. The arithmetic remained. The danger remained. But so too, finally, did proof.

“34 games, girls keep going, it’s the core group. You kind of have to keep trusting in your team-mates and trusting that the win will come, and that is what we’re trying to instil in everybody.

“There has been progress, and we kept kind of believing that it will come because we’re getting better. We’re getting cuter to the game, because it was such a massive jump for us last year.

“I don’t think people realise how much of a difference it is because it’s so much more physical, and God, that Cooke game, (of) all the games that we’e played, I think that Cooke game physically was even one of the hardest.

“We really were hanging on for the last few minutes because they were knocking at the door and you could hear their sidelines shouting. So, I suppose that kind of gave us a bit of motivation as well that we’re saying we can hang on here. We’re well able. We’re fighting for each other here.”

That mantra of ‘fighting for each other’ captures the essence of what has kept Tullow going through the bleakest stretches of this run. That losing streak could hollow out a team from within, yet Tullow did not fold. They kept taking to the field and searching for evidence that something was changing.

O’Brien talks about progress in such small details as phases and passages of play, saying: “I think that we just put in the hard work and we kind of realised that the pace is a lot quicker and that we had to play at a different pace than we were used to.

“From the first round, even from last season, to the first round this season, we could see progress, but we really did see it after Christmas.

“I think that Railway game, I just remember it being very clear that we had set a target of the first 20 minutes, we keep them out for 20 minutes, we worked our arses off for 20 minutes and we did.

“We frustrated them because we dug deep, but then the second half comes and everyone kind of thinks, ‘Right, oh sure, we’re not a second half team’. We haven’t been because we’ve run out of steam because our fitness isn’t quite as good as other teams.

“But that Railway game, I felt that after that game, it didn’t feel like a huge defeat because I think that we, as a team, found something deeper within. I just felt like there was something there, something more special to come, to be honest.”

That ‘something more special’ has now arrived in the form of a first league win, but the path to it was long, exhausting, and often unforgiving. Tullow’s first season in the division had the brutal feel of an education delivered without compromise.

Promoted into a league for the first time full of established clubs, deeper squads and hardened players, they were exposed to a standard that can be difficult to comprehend from outside. It was not just the pace or the intensity. it was the relentlessness.

This season, even with the second chance they were afforded after relegation, they have had to learn those lessons all over again. But there is a difference now.

“There’s a lot of that team that are there a very long time and you want to fight for each other. It’s about the team, it’s about the jersey that you put on. Each week you go out hoping for a big performance and you need a big performance because otherwise you can’t compete with these teams.

“But I think for the Cooke game, we really didn’t have a choice. We had to perform, we had to turn up, and we had to take it as a final because otherwise we had no chance of staying up. To be honest, even with 34 losses in a row, relegation was never our plan.

“We were hoping that we would get another chance to stay up because I think that you just need time to build. And that’s where the stronger AIL clubs come into their own because they’ve had time, and they have experience and the physicality is getting bigger and better.”

Time, in O’Brien’s view, is the central issue. Time to build physically. Time to adapt culturally. Time to let younger players learn this level without being crushed by it. Time to create habits that do not yet come naturally.

The established All-Ireland League clubs have had years to build those foundations. Tullow are trying to lay them while also living inside the pressure of survival. That is why this current fight matters beyond the immediate table – it is about protecting a pathway for the younger girls already coming through the club.

“We’ve had to work really hard to get where we are and I’d hate to see us having to go down again this year, because I feel like there’s more in the team and there’s more in the club.

“Also there is an Under-18 structure, which is brilliant, and there’s a lot of U-18 girls that are phenomenal rugby players. If we’re not an AIL club, more than likely we lose them to another AIL club.

“So, we’re not just doing it for the players that are there at the minute. We’re actually doing it for the future. The club is how I see it. I’m nearly retired, like I should be retired probably five years ago. You kind of have to remind yourself what you’re doing it for.

“It’s for that team and it’s for the club, so it’s for those young girls coming up through the ranks. I hope to God we manage to get a result now, to keep that promise.”

She continued: “These young girls deserve that because they’ve had a mini structure the whole way up, which wasn’t available when I started out playing rugby. I was senior and that was it.

“It’s a special thing for us to be able to give that to the girls, and also just for us to be there in the first place is special. They’ve really bought into it. The U-18 girls now, we’d obviously go to a lot of their games and they’re showing up to support us and ours. You can see that bond is already developing.

“It’s our own pathway. I think for me personally, it is so special to be able to say, ‘Listen, I’ve played in a Tullow jersey my whole life and we’ve managed to go from nothing to an AIL structure and a senior club’.

“That’s so important for the young girls to see that. You don’t have to swap clubs. It is possible and we have done it, so now we just have to really dig deep and try and hold that status.”

This is where last Saturday’s breakthrough win felt so much larger than a league result. It was validation of years of work, of stubbornness, of people refusing to accept that Tullow should simply be grateful to participate. It turned belief into evidence. It also transformed the atmosphere around the squad almost instantly.

Describin the post-match scenes, O’Brien, who has played most of her rugby at inside centre and number 8, admitted: “I was very emotional. Like any supporter that was there was on the field. It was incredible. It felt so good to finally get there.

“I kept saying to them, the win will come. If you are patient, the win will come, and it did. It was emotional. It was frustrating because we let them get a losing bonus point, so there’s so many things going through my head at the time.

“I was thinking of next weekend, and thinking how we’ve kind of left it a little bit hard for ourselves again. But look, listen, it’s the next hurdle and we’ll go after that too.”

Even the technology of modern support reflected the scale of the moment. O’Brien’s phone had plenty of messages, Tullow’s WhatsApp group for fixtures, usually subdued, suddenly erupted into life.

“When I checked my phone, there were a hundred and something messages. We have a fixtures group for Tullow and like every week we have a thing and it gives an update and it might be, whatever, 7-0.

“Then there’s nothing until half-time and it could be 14-0 and then there’s nothing, and then it’s like the final score. Whereas in every other team, it’s like an update. Whereas on Saturday, it literally just has all the updates from the match and then obviously, you know, Tullow have won or whatever.

“The support that flooded into that group then from people that are all over the world, that are just kind of supporting Tullow, was mad. We were all talking about that when we were finished. We were like, ‘Did anyone look at that group?’. It was hilarious.”

That outpouring says something important about clubs like Tullow. Even when they struggle, people remain attached to them. Support endures not because winning is guaranteed, but because identity is.

The club matters to the town. It matters to former players, it matters to people far from Rathoe Road who still look for the score on Saturday afternoons or evenings.

Now the story turns to Ennis, and there is symmetry in that too. The opening match of the season against them had already hinted that Tullow were moving closer. They picked up their first ever points, a narrow loss that they were kicking themselves to have not won.

“Ennis has been super. Like the first game we had them in was obviously the first of the season and they were brilliant. We thought at that stage that we were starting to see results, and everything’s improving. It was a cracker of a game.

“Unfortunately we were on the losing end by a few points, but we got our first points on the board at that stage. So actually, even though we were devastated that we lost, we were just happy that we got something because obviously the previous year we didn’t get anything.”

The celebrations from last week’s win went into the early hours of the following morning. It was belief that turned into reality that after some unkind results, they had showcased just why they should be here.

Now ending the regular season how they began it, they travel to Ennis for the reverse fixture, with something even more powerful behind them – proof that they can win.

Clubs like Tullow do not survive on results alone. They survive on people who keep believing when belief looks irrational. They survive on core groups who carry standards through bad seasons and hard years until a younger generation can inherit something stronger. They survive on the idea that one day the scoreboard will catch up with the effort.

Last Saturday, for the first time in the All-Ireland League, it did. Now comes the next test. Ennis away. Another final really. Another chance to prove that this was not just a single emotional evening, but the beginning of something more durable.

“We had our few drinks on Saturday night. We celebrated in the club, but we also did have it in the back of our mind that we have to push on now.

“The fact that we’re coming in from a win is massive because every week you’re kind of deflated and you’re thinking, ‘Right, what can we do differently this week now to get better and improve?’.

“This week it’s another massive opportunity for us to go to Ennis, and if we perform like we did against Cooke and bring that intensity and energy and the aggression that we brought to Cooke, I honestly think that we have a really good chance.

“The girls are excited because I think they know we actually can win. It is not a mental block, it’s possible. It is possible that we can stay up now, so we just have to see how it goes,” added O’Brien.

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