Irish Rugby awaiting decision on joint bid to join Premiership Women’s Rugby

Irish Rugby is awaiting a decision on a joint bid to join Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), with a verdict on whether the Irish, Welsh and Scottish unions will be accepted expected within the next three to four months, Irish Rugby’s head of women’s strategy Lynne Cantwell told RTE.

Premiership Women’s Rugby, currently limited to English clubs, opened an expression of interest process in April for organisations that might join the nine-team competition if it expanded; the Irish Rugby Football Union confirmed at the time that it had shown interest. Cantwell said the IRFU submitted a combined proposal with the Welsh and Scottish unions and that a potential merger with the Celtic Challenge is being explored. The Celtic Challenge, contested by Irish, Scottish and Welsh sides, has been running since 2023 and has been largely dominated by Irish sides Wolfhounds and Clovers; Wolfhounds have won the tournament three years in a row and the squads for the two Irish teams are selected from a pool of players based in Ireland.

Cantwell described the prospect of Irish teams joining PWR as significant for elite development, saying: "I think the opportunity is incredibly massive, when we look at the elite competition that we want our national players and emerging players to be part of," she said. "We're on that journey. The opportunity to play in a cross-border competition with the Red Roses and the Scottish players and Welsh players is really significant, so it's one we are very focused on exploring. "It's the best elite domestic league in the world at the moment. What we are seeing is a lot of international players to play in the English league because of that."

The IRFU’s combined bid is understood to allow for a merger with the Celtic Challenge by the 2028-29 season at the earliest, and Cantwell said a substantial dossier was provided to support the application. "We had to submit a huge big data dump, which took a considerable amount of time, that explored strategy, to commercials, to performance plan, to stadium access and accessibility and so on," she said. "We met with them, they interviewed everybody, or met with everybody to check and challenge the information, and that's all we have at the moment."

Cantwell also explained the governance pathway and why a decision will not be immediate: "So we're waiting to hear from them. What they have said is that because they're PWR, they're an entity who are run by shareholders, which is all the PWR clubs and the RFU as a stakeholder. "Obviously it's a competition that's run in England as the RFU, and therefore the governance and sign-off behind any change takes a couple of layers and therefore we're not going to know it for another kind of three or four months, that's what they've said," she added.

A sizable contingent of Irish internationals already plays in PWR, including Harlequins captain and double Women's Six Nations player-of-the-tournament Aoife Wafer, Sale Sharks back row Brittany Hogan, Exeter Chiefs forwards Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald and Dorothy Wall, and Gloucester Hartpury players Sam Monaghan, Niamh O'Dowd and Neve Jones. Cantwell pointed to the day-to-day environment PWR offers as part of the rationale for pursuing cross-border participation, saying: "I think what that means for a player is that she is in a great daily environment, getting great access to training, medical and all those things that she needs to put on a weekly basis, and she is playing a really intense competition, and where you are feeling into that principle of iron sharpens iron, which makes everyone better."

Domestically, Munster, Connacht, Leinster and Ulster currently compete in an Interpro league in the early part of the season, while discussions continue over the wider structure that would follow any PWR expansion. A formal decision on the bid is expected within the next three to four months, and any merger with PWR would not be possible before the 2028-29 season at the earliest.