Fogarty: This Is What They’ve Been Working Towards

Denis Fogarty agrees it has been ‘quite a journey’ when he reflects on his four years with the Ireland Women up to the point of them playing their first ever standalone international match at the Aviva Stadium this weekend. Tickets are on sale here.

Scrum coach Fogarty is the longest serving member of the current Ireland Women’s coaching team, first coming on board for the 2022 summer tour to Japan which saw Aoife Dalton and Dannah O’Brien make their debuts as teenagers.

He was there at the start of the international careers of young props Sadhbh McGrath and Niamh O’Dowd, who now have 43 caps between them, and has helped Linda Djougang and Neve Jones to become two of the team’s most established front rowers.

The progress made on the pitch during Scott Bemand’s reign has seen Ireland get back on the Rugby World Cup stage, claim the scalp of New Zealand in WXV1, and set multiple attendance records. Their latest one is hugely significant with 30,000 tickets sold for Sunday’s clash with Scotland.

It will be the first time an Ireland Women’s side has played at the Aviva Stadium since the 2014 double header with their male counterparts against Italy. It seems a world away from Fogarty’s first home game with the squad when over 5,000 fans turned out to watch them play France in Cork in 2023.

“It’s been quite a journey, to be honest with you,” admitted the Tipperary man. “Since I started out with the girls, it’s just so good to see where the game has gotten to and the support now that they have behind them.

“That is what they’ve been working towards, you know, all these couple of years, and it is really, really pleasing to see the numbers that are in now for Sunday, which is really exciting.

“It is exactly what the girls deserve, and it is all about now making sure that we put a performance out there worthy of this kind of occasion on Sunday.”

Ireland’s hopes of marking their historic ‘Super Sunday’ appearance at the home of Irish Rugby with a win have been helped by no fresh injury concerns following last Saturday’s 33-12 victory over Wales in Belfast.

They come into the final round of the Guinness Women’s Six Nations in third place, determined to reverse the result from last year when Scotland edged them 26-19 in Edinburgh on the last day of the 2025 Championship.

They have benefitted from having a largely settled team and matchday squad this year, with all bar one of the starting pack being ever-present, including the front row of Ellena Perry, Clíodhna Moloney-MacDonald, and Djougang, and the back-line also showing minimal changes.

As they bid to register three Six Nations wins in a single tournament for the first time since 2020, Fogarty said: “Everyone is good. A full bill of health, which has been great. Obviously Aoibheann (Reilly) was ruled out last week, so she’s been the only person (missing).

“I think (the continuity in selection) is a sign that we’re creating that depth that we have been looking for, I suppose, in the past couple of years.

“There’s real competition, even from a front row point of view. It’s getting very competitive around there, and even in the midfield as well. It’s a really good sign to where we’re at and where we want to get to.”

With match fitness and form on their side, head coach Bemand may have only had to make some tweaks to his selection from week to week, but players have certainly had to work extremely hard to hold onto their starting jerseys. World Cup starters are on the bench, and four debutants have set out their stall.

Eilís Cahill, Katie Whelan, Robyn O’Connor, and Niamh Gallagher all won their first Test caps during the campaign, with 20-year-old winger O’Connor making the most significant breakthrough with four starts and a debut try. There were first Six Nations starts too for Perry and Nancy McGillivray.

While moving their fixtures around the provinces has served Bemand’s charges very well, and they will no doubt continue to do so with the USA and Japan coming in the autumn for the WXV Global Series, playing regularly at the national stadium is the obvious next step after Sunday.

“We’re very clear on this, and let me be very clear on this,” insisted Fogarty. “This is not a once-off for us on Sunday. We want to make this every year where the girls get to perform and get more and more people behind them.

“That’s the idea about this. We’re not looking at this as just a once-off, you know, let them have their opportunity in the Aviva. This will become a yearly thing, and I think that is what we’ve been working at.

“I’ve been there for the last four years and from where these girls have come from and what they’ve built to right now, I think they deserve every bit of that. You’ll see this team drive on even further and get more and more people behind it.”

The former Munster hooker says the players have trained ‘really, really well this week’, and while pressure will be on them to produce a performance to match the occasion against Scotland, they have drawn confidence from playing in front of big crowds recently in London and Clermont-Ferrand.

In front of a Six Nations record attendance of 77,120 in Twickenham, they finished strongly against England with tries from captain Erin King and Anna McGann. In round 3, they outplayed France during the first half at Stade Marcel Michelin, quietening the 17,000-strong home crowd.

Now it is about marrying that all together for a full 80-minute display at Irish Rugby HQ. This is history in the making for Irish Women’s rugby, and King and her team-mates intend to grasp the opportunity with both hands.

Fogarty acknowledged: “It is one thing, you know, they’ve got to enjoy this occasion. This is what we’ve been looking towards, especially the players. Looking for a crowd like that in the Aviva, playing in the Aviva in a standalone game.

“But we have spoken about that performance and that’s what matters for us. We spoke about it in other occasions like times in Twickenham and France, looking forward to actually performing on these big occasions.

“That is what we’ve been set out to do this weekend. We’ve been really focused on that and making sure we get our performance right on Sunday.”

He added: “Scotland have upset us a few times. Not taking them lightly will be one thing, We looked at areas of the game from last week of how Wales upset our speed of ball and kind of made things difficult for us.

“It’s about making sure that get that right. We have to get that right on the day, and kind of not looking for excuses on that.

“So, making sure that we focus on what we’re able to do within those moments to allow us to play the game. That’s really it. It is about focusing on what we can control, and how we go about doing it.”