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The Irish Women's Rugby Football Union (IWRFU) was founded in 1991, and the Ireland women's national rugby union team made their international debut in 1993. The IWRFU became affiliated to the IRFU in 2001, and was incorporated into the IRFU in 2008.
The advent of the new Six Nations format coincided with this Irish resurgence, and they became the strongest of the Celtic nations. In 2001 the rugby union season was disrupted due to the foot and mouth crisis in Britain. Ireland were good enough to beat France but were unable to play Scotland until the Autumn and were caught cold losing 32–10.
The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) (Irish: Cumann Rugbaí na hÉireann) is the body managing rugby union in the island of Ireland (both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). The IRFU has its head office at 10/12 Lansdowne Road and home ground at Aviva Stadium, where adult men's Irish rugby union international matches are played.
However, since rugby union went professional in 1995, the head-to-head is a lot closer. The teams have met 35 times since then with England winning 19 test matches to Ireland's 16. Apart from their annual match during the Six Nations Championship, the teams have also met on six other occasions, with England winning five.
The two teams were to meet again in November 2004 when South Africa toured the UK and Ireland, playing each of the home nations.In the lead-up to the match, South African coach Jake White provided additional motivation to the Irish team by publicly repeating his statement from earlier in the year that "only three Irish players would be good enough to get onto the South African team".
From this nadir, however, Irish rugby improved. The Irish Rugby Football Union converted the four representative provincial sides into de facto club sides, and the formation in 2001 of the Celtic League (now called the Pro14) provided Irish provincial sides with regular competitive rugby. The move to provincial professionalism was a significant ...
The Ireland national rugby union team represents the island of Ireland in international rugby union and plays in the Six Nations Championship and Rugby World Cup. Thomas Gisborne Gordon, who played for Ireland between 1877–78, is the only one handed player to have competed in international rugby of either code. [1]
After the 1995 introduction of professionalism in rugby union, the IRFU increased the importance of the provinces, which from 2002 participated in the Celtic League (now the United Rugby Championship) as full-time teams rather than ad hoc selections of club players. Therefore, the best Irish players no longer played in the AIL.