By Irishexaminer.com,Simon Lewis

Copyright irishexaminer

Finn, 19, will help UL Bohs bid for a third AIL Women’s Division title in a row when the new season gets underway a week on Saturday, September 27, when the back-to-back champions will travel to Dublin to face Blackrock, the team they beat in the semi-finals en route to a second successive victory over Railway Union at Aviva Stadium And the Nenagh native believes upcoming campaign will hit the ground running thanks to Ireland’s positive World Cup experience, under the banner of the “Green Wave”, which ended in heartbreak in a narrow quarter-final defeat to France in Exeter last Sunday.

“This World Cup has probably been the most massive thing for women’s rugby,” Finn told the Irish Examiner.

“You heard in their interviews, the Irish girls talking about all the support coming over and having like 30,000 fans coming to watch their game (against pool rivals New Zealand).

“That’s huge, unheard for women’s rugby outside of maybe England-France Six Nations games. I don’t think there’s ever been that many at an Ireland match, even when the World Cup was in Ireland.

“So it’s absolutely massive and their Green Wave, it’s impacting not only young girls coming up, it’s also impacting younger boys coming up as well.”

Finn said she understood the Irish players’ disappointment at their 18-13 exit at Sandy Park but Scott Bemand’s team had given the women’s game in Ireland a massive boost.

“A couple of the players have said they were sorry, that they felt they had maybe disappointed (the supporters) but I have honestly never felt more proud to be Irish because of them. It’s so much more inclusive, they’re reaching so many new people coming to rugby.

“Even the commentators on the games, they’re welcoming anyone watching rugby for the first time, explaining the rules in a very easy way to understand. I think it’s huge and it’s built up a bigger fanbase, especially for the Six Nations coming up, like to have a match in the Aviva against Scotland (next May 17), that’s insane.”

Head coach Bemand’s assertion that the Ireland Women’s team would continue to improve over the next four years has caught the imagination of Finn, who in tandem with fellow UL Bohs playmaker Kate Flannery steered Munster to this season’s Vodafone Women’s Interprovincial Championship three weeks ago.

Capped as an Ireland U20 earlier this summer, Finn now has her targets set on Australia 2029 and what she believes will be further groundbreaking tournament for the Irish game.

“That’s definitely one of my goals. The squad is so young and all the up and coming talents, it’s all so young, I think the next World Cup is going to be huge for Ireland.

“We’re competing, we got into the quarter-finals and Sunday was sad but there were a lot of moments where people thought they could have gone into the semis.

“So that might sting for them but honestly, the next World Cup, we’ll have all those girls, who’ll have so much more experience and maturity, just from continuing to play the game for the next four years.

“And you’ll have all these younger girls coming up, bringing maybe new skills and different aspects to things. It’s very exciting.”

More immediately, the potential impact on the AIL Women’s campaign can also be considerable, she said.

“I think it’s very big, especially because a lot of the Irish girls are still playing in Ireland whereas a lot of the other nations, including a couple of the UK countries, they’re all playing in the PWR (in England).

“That’s huge, them being able to bring back their experience, not just from the World Cup but their knowledge and rugby IQ in general. And you’ve all the girls coming back from interpros as well, adding their knowledge, as well as all the girls playing AIL who have played in the past for their provinces and Ireland.

“It’s been really growing over the last couple of years and it can only keep growing.”