Eight years is a long time between drinks.
Ireland's last World Cup outing – on home soil in 2017 – should have been an opportunity to explode the game in this country. Instead, it was the start of a mighty fall.
Progress isn't linear, as Ireland’s last two World Cup cycles have shown. After missing out on qualification for New Zealand last time out, Ireland have picked themselves back up off the canvas and returned to the top table, arguably in better shape than they were eight years ago.
It will be a bittersweet moment for many ex-internationals when they watch Ireland take on Japan in Sunday’s Pool C opener in Northampton.
Their absence from the 2021 tournament ensured there is a notable list of players whose careers in green came and went without ever getting the chance to play on rugby's biggest stage, in large part down to the way the XVs game was neglected by the IRFU.
Former captain Nichola Fryday (below) is one of those who was denied that chance to play at the highest level. While the second row had made her debut prior to 2017, she missed out on that year’s World Cup before an unexpected retirement from Test rugby two years ago.
There are others whose international careers started and finished in the years between these two World Cups. Hannah O’Connor, Aoife McDermott and Lauren Delaney are three of the most high-profile examples, all key players in the years they were involved for Ireland.
Others, like Kathryn Dane, Aoife Doyle and Katie O’Dwyer would likely have been needed for a World Cup three years ago, but that window may have now closed.
It speaks to the age and relative lack of experience in this Ireland squad that only one player in the current group has ever player at a World Cup before, with hooker Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald the only survivor from group that featured for Ireland in 2017.
By contrast, eight of England’s 2017 squad are still going in 2025, while Emily Scarratt is the first English player to feature in five different editions of the tournament.
Three of the current squad – Elenna Perry, Ivana Kiripati and Nancy Gillivray – made their debuts during the warm-up games against Scotland and Canada this month, while exactly half of the 32-player squad have made their debuts since that failed qualification campaign in 2021. As painful as the defeats to Spain and Scotland were in Parma four years ago, 16 of those group don't wear the scars.
The World Cup experience may not be there, but they have had a taste of the 'Big Game’ atmosphere, with a large portion of the group playing in front of just under 50,000 people at Twickenham last year, while they will lean heavily on their WXV campaign in Canada last year, where they tested themselves and defied expectations, while also getting to replicate the week-on-week experience that a World Cup camp would bring.
"A great cohort of that squad played in Twickenham where it was 50,000 and that was very overawing for a lot of players at the time," former international Hannah O’Connor said on the RTÉ Rugby podcast this week.
"Incredibly exciting, but you get used to it. That’s the exciting part of a World Cup. You’re going to have massive crowds game-in, game-out.
"There’s no hangover for anybody about what happened at the last World Cup, or the failure to qualify for the last World Cup.
"You don't get that with this group because a lot of them are so fresh and maybe weren't involved last time out. Those bad demons that might be lingering aren’t there.
"They can just go in and express themselves and not get overawed by the size of the crowd and just live in the moment and give the best version of themselves."
The return of Ireland’s Sevens stars to the XV-a-side game have given an injection of pace and skill to the backline in the last year, but more importantly it’s provided a core of experience that can be heavily leaned on for the entire squad.
Amee-Leigh Costigan, Beibhinn Parsons, Stacey Flood (above), Eve Higgins, Emily Lane and Claire Boles all played at the Olympic Games in front of huge crowd in Paris last summer, and have experience of high-stakes, knockout rugby.
Considering how the journey of this Irish women's team began, it's somewhat appropriate that they begin this World Cup campaign against the Sakura XV.
It's exactly three years since Ireland toured Japan for a two-Test series, which they shared 1-1, a trip which has stood to the team since.
While their trajectory fell further in the 2023 Six Nations with a wooden spoon, the Japan trip was where Greg McWilliams threw Dannah O'Brien and Aoife Dalton in at the deep end. O'Brien was just 18-years-old at the time and kicked six conversions on her debut, while Dalton had just turned 19 and marked her first appearance with a try as Ireland came from 15-0 down to record a 57-22 first Test win.
The pair are now central to Ireland's game, even at 21 and 22-years-old respectively. O'Brien has been Ireland's first choice out-half for more than a year, while Dalton has been the defensive leader Ireland in the last couple of years, named Women's Player's Player of the Year at the Rugby Players Ireland awards in May.
🔊 "That backline really excites me, there's so much talent..."@jonnyholland10 is a big fan of Ireland's threats out wide, but they have to be given the right platform. ☘️🇯🇵
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 20, 2025
Full RTÉ Rugby pod: https://t.co/3h50Rv65v1 pic.twitter.com/jzDrlvp4h8
With the spine of this current Irish team still so young, it’s likely they’re still a few years away from peaking.
Back in April, Flood – one of the older crew, aged 29 – said there is "no ceiling" to where this team can go, and the next World Cup in Australia in 2029 is where we should see this group really hit their prime.
O’Brien and Dalton will still only be in their mid-twenties for the next tournament, as will Aoife Wafer, Ruth Campbell, Erin King, Sadhbh McGrath and Parsons. Even players like Neve Jones, Brittany Hogan, Niamh O’Dowd, Eve Higgins and Enya Breen will be 30-years-old or younger, and by no means over the hill.
Experience isn't everything, as evidenced by other teams in this tournament.
No player in the Irish squad has reached 50 caps in Test rugby, while Wales and Scotland had a combined 16 half-centurions on display when they met in Salford earlier on Saturday in Pool B.
But as Ireland have shown in their fast rise up the world rankings in the last two years, building experiences together can be a more valuable than experience on its own.
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Watch Ireland v Japan in the Rugby World Cup on Sunday from 11.30am on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to live radio commentary on 2fm
