May 15 : When Ireland’s women last played at the home of Irish rugby, they walked out to a stadium emptying after Brian O’Driscoll’s farewell, but this weekend they return as the headline act rather than an afterthought, and in front of a record crowd.

Sunday’s Six Nations match against Scotland is the first standalone women’s rugby fixture at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, with over 30,000 tickets already sold.

The record attendance for a women’s rugby match in Ireland was set less than a month ago when 9,206 watched Ireland beat Italy in Galway. Italy were also the opposition during Ireland’s only previous appearance at the Aviva, in 2014.

Billed as a double-header, with the men also playing Italy, a sell-out crowd watched O’Driscoll, one of the country’s greats, play his last international home game for Ireland.

Fiona Coghlan, the women’s captain that day, has bittersweet memories.

“We didn’t get changed in the main stadium, and I remember to get into the stadium, walking down the tunnel where normally the buses go,” Coghlan told Reuters.

“A huge crowd was there, screaming ‘let’s go Ireland’ and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, but halfway down the tunnel I thought ‘they’re all actually leaving’, they weren’t staying for our match.

“It was a spine-tingling moment for a second until the realisation hit that they were actually leaving.”

The fixture came a year after Ireland women won the Six Nations for the first time, but even that success failed to capture the imagination of the Irish public.

“Back then people didn’t really know women played rugby, there was very little media attention,” Coghlan said.

“There wasn’t a huge amount of media exposure even in the Six Nations, the games weren’t on Irish television. We didn’t have a sponsor on our jersey in 2013, so there wasn’t that much visibility at all.”

GROWING SUPPORT

Surging attendances have become a hallmark of the women’s game in recent years, from more than 77,000 fans attending England’s match against Ireland at Twickenham last month to a record 81,885 for last year’s World Cup final.

“In the last two years we’ve seen performances improving, girls now being professionals and the whole exposure of the game in general,” Coghlan said.

“England are leading the way not only in terms of playing, but also in terms of how they engage with fans. I think that’s now trickling into Ireland. They spend a lot of time after games meeting fans.

“Social media has certainly helped as well. People want to know not just what players can do on the pitch, but their background as well.”

Ireland have vastly improved since their 2023 wooden spoon, and are aiming for three home wins out of three this year when they meet Scotland, buoyed by unprecedented support.

“While it was great to play there, it’s a bit of a lonely stadium when there’s not many there,” Coghlan said.

“I saw the ticket sales sitting at 20,000, and thought, it really has to be 30,000 to try and make any dent in it.”