The full circle of working alongside professional male athletes in Leinster, having started out amongst the boys at Enniskillen RFC, would not be lost on Kathryn Dane.
“I’m lucky enough I started a physiotherapy internship with Leinster Rugby with the senior academy team,” said Dane at the launch of the Trinity Sports Scholarship, where her PhD investigates injuries related to tackling in women’s rugby.
“They’re in a bubble and they’re very well controlled under the Covid guidelines so I’m lucky enough to be in training with them during the week.”
The route most female players have to travel to play international rugby tends to be abnormal. Dane, the scrumhalf in last Saturday’s 21-7 victory over Italy, started at age eight in her father’s club. She battled away amongst the lads until under-12s in what would be an unheard of pathway for one gender but is an unavoidable reality for so many young girls.
“I was very small and about half the size of the boys and the coaches were very apprehensive about me joining in but I think my parents were quite stubborn so they had no choice but to let me muck in,” she recently told the Ulster website.
Rugby options dried up in her teens so Dane became an underage Northern Ireland soccer player instead. Hockey was another alternative pursuit but to say she made the best out of a tag team in Enniskillen Royal Grammar School is a massive understatement.
Dane parlayed that school side into Ulster U-18 champions at full contact, 15-a -side. She created the team herself.
“It was really quite funny because we didn’t expect to do well at all but it just goes to show that if you have a really good spine of a team, who have played with each other year on year through tag rugby, you can do anything.”
Ulster were not long putting her on the same pitch as Grace Davitt and Larissa Muldoon but a move to Dublin to study at Trinity led her to Old Belvedere where she was instantly surrounded by more women with “Grand Slam” beside their names.
The 24-year-old, who established herself in the Ireland number nine jersey last season, kept a sharp tempo to proceedings at Donnybrook on Saturday evening.
“I was really worried about that,” Dane admitted having played no competitive rugby since February. “You’re always fearful that you’ll lose your rhythm, but not too bad for the first performance since England.
“I was lucky that my housemates, Jenny Murphy and Darragh Mullins – he’s a 10 at Seapoint RC – helped me work on my distribution. Adam Griggs [the Ireland coach] being a scrumhalf himself, he would always send me loads of drills and videos that I could do. Especially box-kicking, you can practise that on your own no problem.”
Another level
Besides a poor return at set piece against Italy and the continued absence of Murphy’s unrivalled power in midfield, Ireland’s conditioning coach Orlaith Curran and defensive structures put in place by Kieran Hallett appear to have brought the squad to another level.
There were sloppy elements to a victory that achieves the first goal of 2020 – winning three matches – with the second more important aim being to qualify for New Zealand 2021.
“One weekend off then camps,” Dane explains her life after facing France this Sunday. “It’s really just to keep the momentum going and building for the World Cup qualifiers in December.”
Like so much sport classified as amateur, those qualifiers against Scotland and Italy remain in the lap of the virus but Dane could not have found herself a better work placement.
“It actually goes hand in hand with my training and Leinster have an appreciation for my match demands as an international player. And I’m trying to pick up as much extra rugby knowledge and skills as I can.”
Ireland Under-20s head coach Noel McNamara oversees the Leinster academy so it exposes Dane, on a daily basis, to the sort of preparation other elite female rugby players simply cannot gain while living on this island.
“Aw, it is huge, incredible. I am picking up so much. And through rehab with players I get an opportunity to really hone my passing. We have to get players back on the field and that involves passing, kicking, sprinting and I can join in on that which is really brilliant.”
