Anna Caplice: 'We’re at the beginning of another new era, but it has to be right this time'

For Ireland, we’re at the beginning of another new era, but it has to be right this time. WXV3 is probably one of the most exciting groups because while the teams may be some of the least well-known teams at the moment, a lot of them have a rich history in women’s rugby.

There will be chips on shoulders about being in WXV 3 and there will be very few teams who will settle with just being happy to be there. They’ll be wanting more.

It will be highly competitive, but at the same time for Ireland, it is kind of a safety net. I don’t imagine Ireland will come last, what I would hope for this Irish team is that they would win it, but it’s quite competitive. Although I want Ireland to get off on the right foot, it’s not a necessity.

The new coach Scott Bemand has come in and is putting an emphasis on the youth development of this squad which makes sense because the real time when it matters is the Six Nations next year. There is pressure to perform, but as long as they’re doing it in the right way in terms of development, I’d be happy for this squad.

Usually around this time, you’d have autumn internationals, but your eyes are on the Six Nations already the squad for the Six Nations is selected after Christmas.

With Women’s Six Nations being moved to slightly later in the year, although it’s been that way for a couple of years now we’re still adjusting to it, there is still time.

I know there are a lot of Irish girls who are disappointed to have missed out on the WXV squad this time, both young and senior players who still feel like they could get into that squad, especially after a highly competitive Interprovincial series and a lot of really outstanding players.

There’s still time for them to make an impression within Irish Rugby and force competitiveness within the squad. I don’t think anyone will be comfortable in their positions in terms of being able to relax, at least I hope not, because there will be a lot of girls knocking on the door.

Especially when you see often that Munster and Leinster are the two teams who tend to run away with the Interpros, but the fact that Connacht were so competitive as well this year and they have a few players that got into the Irish squad. There are a lot of very impressive young Ulster players.

Credit must go to Leinster for winning the Interpros, they certainly deserved it, but 15 players from Leinster in the Irish squad is very heavy. I’d like to see more girls from across the provinces putting their hand up and not taking no for answer, continuing to bang on the door for selection.

Travelling away to Dubai for WXV3 will be really important for the cohesion of this Irish squad. When Scott Bemund was appointed initially I was a bit disappointed that before any camp he had gotten rid of some of the senior players like Hannah O’Connor and Lauren Delany who had been playing really well and are senior members of the squad.

I was really disappointed for them and to be honest, coming from years of disappointment of how things have gone for Irish women’s rugby, I was unimpressed. A coach coming in and the first thing that happens is some senior players being removed, it doesn’t really send the best message.

However, he has emphasised to the squad that he’s going to go with youth for WXV especially to give them experience.

For him to announce Sam Monaghan and Edel McMahon as co-captains, I admired that. It’s a little bit against the grain, usually if you have two co-captains, they might be one forward and one back to balance it out.

He’s gone with two players both in the pack, they’re definitely hands down the right women for the job and I was really impressed with that appointment.

“Bring it on!” @IrishRugby are pumped ahead of their first WXV 3 fixture against Kazakhstan this Friday! ? #WXV #WXVRugby #IrishRugby #WorldRugby #WomensRugby pic.twitter.com/EJhpCzpbrR

— WXV (@WXVRugby) October 10, 2023

Scott has said all of the right things in terms of the leadership and the group dynamic he wants to create. I’ve heard those things before so it’s time to see it start to work now.

On a trip like this, it can be difficult at times being away and in a new environment, but if you’ve got good leaders they can really work with the squad and make people feel comfortable and like they’re among real family and friends.

That’s the feel that you need to create when you’re away at a tournament like this and I really trust Sam and Edel, or Tricky as we call her, to get that right for this squad.

WXV3 is probably a nice place to be for Ireland because while there is a lot of footage of other the teams from the qualifying process, there’s not a huge saturation of games that you need to be looking at, lineouts you need to be mulling over and such.

That then puts the real focus on yourselves and looking at what are we going to do, what are we going to bring. You can watch previous games and get an idea of how they play, but you don’t need to do heaps of homework which could change how you prepare for the game.

Ireland will play Kazakhstan first and they haven’t played against each other since the Rugby World Cup in 2014 in France. Ireland won 40-5 that day and that was sort of a second-string Ireland team, they shook up their squad and gave their bench players a run and still got a really strong result.

If you look at Ireland’s status then, they beat the Black Ferns that year and got to a World Cup semi-final. In terms of world ranking, we were in a much stronger place then, and that was almost ten years ago, so I have to think Ireland will have to work really hard to get a result similar to that.

In terms of Kazakhstan, it’s such an interesting country because the history of women’s rugby and rugby in general in the country is so interesting. They pride themselves on being very physical. Traditionally a lot of them came from the military and they were a really tough opposition and they’ll be wanting to use their physicality.

They had dominated Asian rugby for so long but had started to fall off the pace recently, they will be wanting to put that right. It’s a massive tournament for them to get back try and get back to the World Cup, they’ve competed in so many in the past and will definitely have their eye on first -place in WXV3.

For them it won’t be a case of turning up and being happy to be there, they’ll want to get back to where they used to be which was the strongest Asian team.

From watching Kazakhstan and some of the other countries in WXV3, there are a lot of sevens players that come across which can pose a real threat especially in attack, if they get a little bit of space they can really punish you. I’ve found particularly from watching Kazakhstan that they’re a bit slower to come up in defence which is a real habit from sevens.

I’m sure they will have done their homework, but for a lot of teams with smaller player pools, they’ll have a lot of sevens influence. They’ll need to manage that to get the best out of their sevens players and tweak things when they need to adapt to have more strength in 15s.

The teams in WXV3 may well have chips on their shoulders as they’re not competing at a level they maybe would have been in the past, but that’s what makes it probably the most exciting group.

There will be a lot to prove and many of the teams have been through a lot of adversity in their journeys, particularly for Ireland and Kazakhstan who used to be strong and have fallen away, that’s very frustrating for players and management.

To know that you once had such a stronghold and to now be fighting back for that is going to give those players that edge to work harder, to train better, to recover better, to get off the ground quicker. They’re all driving factors in WXV3. I hope that every player there has aspirations to progress out of WXV 3 to WXV 2 and so on, and to be staking a claim at a World Cup.

The 2025 Rugby World Cup is something to be looking ahead to, but the focus has to be on the here and now for Ireland. The first step of that is getting experience for this young squad.

Right now, all they can look to do is use this tournament to get some good momentum and results, time, and experience under those players’ belts. I can’t even begin to think what it would mean to Irish rugby if were not to qualify for the RWC again, so we have to start the process of looking ahead to qualification here.

The way to approach the RWC in the best way possible is to focus on the here and now and looking at the fact that any of these teams in WXV3 could be at the World Cup as well.

Considering where we used to be, Irish rugby really shouldn’t be at this level if we had followed all the right steps at that time, so we have to lay down a marker here of where we want to get to. There’s no more time to waste, we have to be, no ifs or buts, at that World Cup in 2025.

Yes there’s a safety net in WXV3 and yes we can try things and bring on a young squad, but everyone has to be learning and improving all the time. There is no more time to waste with the pace that everyone else is taking off in terms of their development. Ireland especially more than anyone else has no time to waste on the matter.

At WXV3, aside from the results, a marker of success for Ireland, in my opinion, would be some good discoveries of young players and players nailing down their jerseys. It’s great to see someone like Nicole Fowley come back into the squad and half a real challenge for the out-half jersey which for so long was going between so many players.

To see Dannah O’Brien put her name on that jersey in last year’s Six Nations, she’s still so young, she still needs an arm around her at times or to be pushed at other times and I think Nicole Fowley is the perfect competition for her in that position.

If we can nail down a positive nine and ten relationship, especially at ten, with the rest of the team I think that’s going to be so positive for this Irish team.

It’s really exciting to see young players developing their characters and personalities, and being happy to be there because they’re performing not just because they’re there, but because they’re putting the Irish jersey in a better place.