Eileen Gleeson has enjoyed many a good day during her 30 years working in women’s football, but her appointment as Republic of Ireland manager this week is, she said, “the proudest time in my life”. Gavin Cummiskey was at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday for Gleeson’s unveiling, this being a case of third time lucky after she was an unsuccessful applicant for the job on the previous two occasions. But, explained Marc Canham, the FAI’s director of football, she emerged as the strongest candidate this time around from an initial list of 42 applicants.
Canham also used the press conference to preview the paper he will publish next month which will outline his plans for the revamping of the women’s game in Ireland. The aim, writes Gavin, is to bring in structures that will result in Ireland being “on a par with middle-tier European football nations”. “How such an enormous undertaking is financed over 10 years remains to be seen,” he says, the FAI’s coffers not exactly overflowing.
The ultimate dream is to produce a bunch more Katie McCabes, Gavin talking to the Irish captain in a piece for today’s Women in Sport 2023 magazine. Malachy Clerkin reflects on another productive year for our sportswomen which produced many a memorable moment, 25 of which we pick out when it could have been 50. There are interviews with rower Siobhán McCrohan, aspiring rugby Sevens Olympian Vikki Wall, golfer Áine Donegan and Nora Stapleton, the Women in Sport Lead with Sport Ireland.
In rugby, Gerry Thornley writes about the “speedy confirmation of RG Snyman’s arrival at Leinster”, the South African due to depart Munster and link up with his old buddy Jacques Nienaber next season.
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Caelan Doris tells Gerry that he is relishing playing alongside Snyman, rather than against him, and also talks about working with Nienaber at Leinster and about the new IRFU central contract he has signed that will keep him with the province until the end of the 2026-27 season.
Gordon D’Arcy looks ahead to the the festive season’s interprovincial games – Leinster v Munster and Ulster v Connacht – recalling his playing days when, if he was going to be in action on St Stephen’s Day, he had to restrain himself from overindulging on Christmas Day. “No one wanted to play like a pudding.”
And in Gaelic games, Gordon Manning talks to former Tipperary hurler Bubbles O’Dwyer about, among other things, the unstoppable machine that is the five-in-a-row-seeking Limerick. “If they get out of Munster there is nothing going to stop them,” he says.
TV Watch: There’s a heap more football on your screens today, among the offerings the women’s Champions League meeting of Häcken and Chelsea (DAZN and TNT Sports 2, 8pm) and the League Cup quarter-final between Liverpool and West Ham (Sky Sports Football, 8pm).
