Sophie Spence and Fiona Coghlan joined Friday's OTB AM to reflect on the IRFU's decison to decline an invitation for the Irish Women's team to play a three test series in Australia this summer.
The Australian Rugby Union had offered to pay for all accommodation required on the tour but the IRFU turned down the proposition in favour of focusing on the November internationals - which has perplexed many involved in the women's game here.
"As a sport for all - you want young girl to be able to pick up a ball the same age as boys do and I think that's the disappointing thing," Spence told Adrian. "If there's an opportunity like this for a lot of learning and a lot of experience as a young squad to develop and when parents are seeing things like this in public - do they want their young girls to continue or even try and pick up a rugby ball? So you'd try to create opportunities and break down those barriers - barriers that shouldn't be there.
"From the women's side of things - we finished 8th in the last World Cup so we've still got to qualify for the next World Cup which from a new squad, there was a lot of retirements at the last World Cup last year, so from a young squad trying to develop and it's an opportunity coming off a 6 Nations where they finished third which I think with new management was a good finish.
"It's all about trying to preform and get those performances together and get more time together so to have the opportunity to actually travel and learn from the men's side of things as well because these guys are professionals so if you can actually take a couple of things from them on the training ground and see what they do and how they do things - it's a lot of learnings but being in camp for a certain period of time - it's that environment that you don't get as a female player and I think that's the major thing now that we've got to wait until next November when you might only be in camp for maybe two days and then you go on to the 6 Nations."
Looking to the future, the former Ireland international hopes a gateway for former players to participate in the game becomes more readily available so they can pass on their knowledge to the next generation of female players.
"It's about being honest and that honesty to look at where the IRFU are focusing on and I think it's a bit of a respect thing as well with where we're at. There's so many past players who have just retired now or whether they've retired 5/10/15 years ago who want to be involved in the game...whether they take up an admin role or take up a coaching role but they're people on the ground who actually want to be involved and be part of this to make sure the game is actually going to go somewhere.
"So, I think it's brilliant they've heard past players/current players/clubs and what they want - it's about giving them a duty to take the game in a direction but we need to know what that direction is," she added.
Catch Friday's full discussion here:
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