Having captained the Irish Women's Rugby team to a historic Grand Slam in last year's Six Nations, and to a famous victory over the All Blacks in this years World Cup, Fiona Coghlan's position as a legend of Irish rugby is assured. But she now admits that when she first played rugby in university she found it "boring".
Speaking with Roisin Ingle on the "Roisin Meets. " podcast, Coghlan recalled her first impressions of the game. "It's so technical compared to any other sport I'd played, there's loads of standing around" she said. Fortunately for Irish rugby, she soon became hooked.
During the recent World Cup campaign the team attracted more media attention than ever before, some of it more concerned with the image of the players than their achievements on the pitch. Coghlan is not very concerned.
“Any publicity is good, and that kind of benefitted us in a way, because the flipside of it was the support it got us” said Coghlan.
“If we’re being commented on on how we play, good or bad, that’s what we want” she added.
Coghlan is also a Maths and PE teacher, and believes that the education system should be changed to place more focus on physical activity. Children should have PE every day as they do maths, said Coghlan.
“Surely physical activity and education about being active and nutrition are just as important.... you look at kids when they go into primary school, they’re really active, they play and run around. But as the years go on, we teach them to be more sedentary. They sit in class longer. They get PE possibly once a week”
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