The DCU Ladies Rugby Club stormed to a first ever SSI Women’s Rugby Division 1 title with a convincing win over IT Carlow
The team comfortably won the league, with bonus point victories in each of their five league games.
DCU LRC flanker Emma Lackey spoke to The College View about why the team were so successful in their campaign.
“We’ve been really lucky with the first years we got in this year, they’ve made a big difference. I think we just gelled as a team really well this year.”
UCD posed the main challenge to DCU in their challenge for the title, but DCU crucially beat them 37-25 in the third round of the competition to put them in pole position for claiming the league title.
“When we were coming up to them on points difference we knew they’d be the closest because they’ve quite good backs. So yeah that was our toughest game,” Lackey said.
The team had an impressive campaign last season but fell at the last hurdle, losing to the University of Limerick in the Cup final.
Lackey felt that last year’s loss helped to drive the team to success in this season’s campaign.
“We’re still a bit hurt from the loss last year. That was in the cup, so we did win the league last year but there was no official cup the way we won it this year. We lost the cup last year to UL.
“There’s a lot of girls still here from last year which really helps because we’re all on the same page from last year on wanting to win,” Lackey explained.
The side have also improved upon their training regime from last year, and Lackey believed the added intensity at training sessions was crucial to the side’s success.
“It’s quite serious for college sport. We’ve obviously started doing gym sessions down in St Clare’s in the high performance gym so it’s kind of like stepping up a notch from last year definitely in training.
“Eddie (Fallon) is our main coach and he puts so much time and effort into it. We also have one of the Irish girls helping out this year (Ailsa Hughes).
“She’s scrum-half for Leinster, she does a lot of backs work while Eddie does forwards work.”
Lackey was full of praise for her teammates and stated that the seriousness with which the team approached the season was an important factor when it came to winning the league.
“We’ve Emma Hooban who’s on the Irish senior team, this year she played against England and Australia and then we’ve Anna Doyle, a sevens player, she’s really good, Eimear Corri.
“There’s not like really any key players, like they’re all unreal, I can’t pick out a main one,” Lackey said.
The season isn’t over yet for the DCU LRC with a semi-final clash in the cup next on the agenda. The side are in a good place to go one further than last year and claim the cup title.
Eoin Harte
Image Credit: DCU Ladies Rugby