A proud product of Creggs RFC, Jemima Adams Verling has been one of the most consistent performers in the Women's game over the last twelve months, excelling at each level she has played at.
Almost a year ago she scored four tries on her debut for Galwegians - totalling seven in four Energia All-Ireland League appearances - before being ever-present for the Clovers in her second Celtic Challenge season.
Still just 19 at the time, she was the leading Irish tackler in the cross-border competition with 134 successful tackles, including 11 dominant hits, and the second top carrier with 116, only behind Ireland captain Erin King (123).
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In her 12 starts for the Clovers, she contributed three tries, and tallied up over 650 running metres, seven line breaks, 224 attacking ruck arrivals (the highest of the Irish players), and 24 lineout takes.
The iron woman of that Celtic Challenge campaign with the most minutes played of all (914), Adams Verling's impressive form earned her a call-up to Ireland's extended 2026 Guinness Women's Six Nations squad.
Along with gaining exposure to the senior set-up, she played a key part in the Ireland Under-21s' Six Nations Series clean sweep at the same time, touching down against both Italy and England.
More known as a number 8, a position she has made her own at Connacht over the last two Vodafone Women's Interprovincial Championships, the Roscommon native will win her first Ireland senior cap tomorrow at blindside flanker.
Head coach Scott Bemand is confident that Adams Verling will rise to the occasion in Tallaght, especially with King and Aoife Wafer alongside her in the back row for the Vodafone Ireland WXV Series opener.
With four personnel changes to the team that swept Scotland aside back in May, he said: "We've got to blood talent and get to become like a tournament team.
"You never try to go mass swaps in and mass swaps out, (because) basically everyone leaves a bit disappointed. So we're going to select pretty strong, but we're going to drip feed in over games.
"So, Jemima gets to go in the back row with two world-class operators (King and Wafer) inside of her. It gives her every chance to succeed, so that will be interesting.
"She has been grafting away, she's been part of the centralised programme here now for just under a year, and it's a bit of credence really, going, well, look what we can achieve with a player physically, technically, tactically."
While Adams Verling's try straight from a scrum against Munster was another recent highlight, he added: "She has had so many experiences, I think she was the highest-minute player for the Celtic Challenge last year, so she's stacks of minutes.
"She has learned to become robust. It is interesting to see what she can do. She's got a bit about her, you wouldn't put a score past her."
The Connacht starlet, who turned 20 in July, is in her second season as a centrally contracted player with the IRFU Women's High Performance Programme, which continues to bring the best young talent through to Test level.
As development pathways, the Women's National Talent Squad (WNTS) and Ireland Under-20/21 programmes have have notable success in recent years with Katie Corrigan, Ruth Campbell, Ailish Quinn, Ivana Kiripati, Katie Whelan, and Robyn O'Connor all being capped since 2024.
Ireland's extended squad for this international window also includes Eilís Cahill, who made her debut at the start of the 2026 Six Nations, and fellow contracted players Sophie Barrett, Beth Buttimer, Caitríona Finn, Lucia Linn, and Alana McInerney, who are all pressing for their first experience of Test rugby this autumn.
Bemand's side sit fifth in the World Rugby rankings at the start of their first ever WXV Global Series run, which will see them come up against the USA and Japan at home, before next month's two-Test tour to South Africa.
With those teams currently ranked eighth, eleventh, and tenth, respectively, Ireland will expected to deliver consecutive wins over the coming weeks if they want to continue to bridge the gap to the world's leading sides.
They signed off in the Six Nations with serious momentum and a real feelgood factor surrounding the camp. An autumn clean sweep would make it seven victories in a row, something the Ireland Women have not achieved since 2013-2014.
First things first, a tough battle awaits with the US Women's Eagles, and there are elements of their game that Bemand and his fellow coaches want to sharpen up from earlier in the year, as well as ensuring the team performance matches expectation.
"We have spoken about it. We've had a couple of games, namely the last two French games - the could-have, would-have, should-have - and we'll get more luck in games the more we can stick in there. That’s a fact.
"So, we've had some bits that we can say, the ball hasn't bounced our way, there's a refereeing call. That happens, so what we keep doing is, that group is understanding more and more how to control games, how to play in different weather conditions, different environments.
"There's a core of backs that have got a bit of experience and have come through together, their skill-sets are increasing all the time. So is it going to be a question of just relying on Dannah O'Brien's boot? Absolutely not.
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"We've got the hook into people now, it is a bit interesting coming to watch Ireland, 'what are they going to do?’.
"Well, we've got a couple of games that we can go on now. We'll play, we'll kick, we'll counter-attack, we'll push. We will score more and more."
The Hereford man continued: "We've shown that our performances are on the cusp of getting some quite significant victories.
"But we've got to do it from the front, and we've got to become reasonably un-Irish and do it as the favourites, I'd say. But that's all right.
"Learning to perform with that expectation is becoming a good tournament team. It is not all about world rankings, but I think we've closed the gap on what you would perceive as a top four, and we're going to start taking lumps out of that lot now."
