The rise of Ireland hooker Cliodhna Moloney

Cliodhna Moloney has plenty of stories to tell. Take the one about how she got her ‘Onion’ nickname. Playing a game with her new Wasps team-mates in 2018, each person had to say a type of vegetable without showing their teeth and, with her strong Irish accent, “they all thought it was hilarious how I said ‘onion’”.

Then there’s the tale of an incident in a Railway Union v Old Belvedere match a few years back. She and Lindsay Peat were playing for Railway, with Ailis Egan, another member of Ireland’s front row, in the opposition line-up. Egan was a mentor to the other two, and after Old Belvedere got the better of one scrum, she said to Peat: “Watch your bind.”

This didn’t go down too well and when the reverse happened at the next scrum, Railway getting on top, Peat gave Egan a kiss on the cheek. “Ailis then got angry and was saying to the ref, ‘She kissed me in the scrum’,” recalls Moloney. “We had a laugh about it after the game.”

Moloney’s own story is pretty remarkable. She came to rugby late, Gaelic football her main sport growing up. But less than two years after playing her first-ever game, and having found her best position at the third time of asking, she was in the Ireland set-up.

International rugby was never in her plans when she started travelling from Galway, where she was studying at the National University of Ireland, for training and games with Railway back in 2014, but it was clear she had an aptitude for the sport.

She scored three tries from inside-centre in her first game and when she graduated, the club asked if she’d be interested in moving to Dublin so she could train more often. She took the plunge, getting a banking job in the capital, and made the move to the back row before transitioning to hooker.

“Railway Union accelerated my development. I was just enjoying it, but I can see now that John Cronin and the rest of the coaches had a plan for me. Him, Shirley Corcoran and Melissa Slevin left no stone unturned to make me a better player.”

Yet getting international honours so quickly wasn’t an idyllic journey; she was out of her depth at times because she was still, understandably, getting to grips with the game and the laws.

“On the one hand I’m grateful it came so quickly, but I also felt like an idiot at times because I was so raw. I wasn’t confident; people were doubting my ability and had every right to. Don’t get me wrong, it made me who I am now, but it wasn’t the nicest way to learn.”

Cliodhna Moloney scores for Ireland against Scotland last year (Sportsfile/Getty Images)

There’s no questioning Moloney’s ability these days. She was named Women’s 15s Player of the Year at the 2020 Rugby Players Ireland Awards and is also part of an improving Wasps team in the Allianz Premier 15s.

She made the switch to Wasps after a disappointing 2017 World Cup and while her first season in 2018-19 didn’t go smoothly – she missed much of the campaign after shoulder surgery – she is now reaping the benefits. She works part-time as a compliance analyst at Metro Bank, which works well around training.

“There was a sour taste in my mouth from the World Cup and I didn’t want it to impact my rugby. I loved Railway Union but something needed to change and Wasps seemed a good fit.

“Training has ramped up even more since I first came. There is an onus on the clubs to have sessions in the day for the full-time England players, something I and the Ireland players (Claire Molloy and Ciara Cooney) benefit from.”

Ireland’s season has been disrupted, with the Six Nations rescheduled for April, the RWC 2021 qualifiers already postponed twice and the World Cup itself now delayed until 2022, but when it does get underway she has big goals.

“Qualification for the World Cup is number one, then to put a marker down in the Six Nations. At the club we’ve been to the semi-finals a couple of times but never got over the line, so contesting the final would be another (goal) – and I believe we can win it.”

Asked what she’d like to see change in the women’s game, she says: “A sportsperson wants to play sport but a women’s sportsperson has to promote the sport, lobby boards to make the right decisions, big up other women’s sports, fight for air time and column inches. Male athletes train and play.”

This article originally appeared in the March 2021 edition of Rugby World magazine.

Follow Rugby World on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.