Former Ireland rugby international and current Sport Ireland Women in Sport lead Nora Stapleton is hopeful that the big recent gains made by women's sport will not be diminished by the on-going coronavirus pandemic.
Covid-19 has hit every area of sport but there have been fears that women’s sport could face disproportionate barriers to returning to where it was.
In England, the top-flight Women’s Soccer League was ended early, just as the Premier League prepares to return and while there have been no such obvious discrepancies in Ireland, Staunton remains wary of the impact that the pandemic will have on women’s sport here.
Women’s sport in Ireland has been on an upward trajectory over the last few years with record attendances at GAA games and international soccer and ruby.
"I hope it isn’t lost," Staunton said of the growing interest in women’s sport. "Obviously if sport does come back and it’s behind closed doors, that’s going to have a knock-on effect on those attendance figures.
"Certainly the GAA, camogie, soccer and hockey, all of those unions would have been putting plans in place to increase their attendance records again and now they have to be more creative and innovative.
"This year would have been such a brilliant year with the Olympics to look forward too and suddenly it’s gone. It does put a dampener on things but I guess for most of us, we’re looking at where are the opportunities to grasp and where are the possibilities throughout all this as well.
"Is there way that we can be a little bit more creative as to how we get fans into venues or how we watch sport or consume sport or how we offer sport.
"I think that’s what we now need to focus our attentions on."
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