Ex-Ireland women’s coach Philip Doyle says the Irish Rugby Football Union must separate the Sevens and 15s games following the country’s shock failure to qualify for the next World Cup.

“There has to be a clean slate drawn between 15s and Sevens,” said 2013 Grand Slam-winning coach Doyle.

The former Ireland coach said he was left “numbed” by Saturday’s result.

Doyle stepped down as Ireland coach after guiding the team to the World Cup semi-finals in 2014 and after also being in charge of the Scots between 2019 and 2020, he told BBC Radio Ulster’s Sportsound Extra Time that the IRFU could learn much from how its counterpart in Scotland has run the women’s game in recent years.

“It’s very sad on a personal level that when we handed it over, it was in such good condition and unfortunately, through the powers that be, the penny was dropped and standards slipped drastically even though more resources were put into it,” said Doyle.

Resources not the issue insists Doyle

The former Ireland coach rejected any assertion that a lack of resources from the IRFU led to Saturday’s failure – instead insisting that the funds ploughed into the women’s game have been misdirected.

“There has to be a clear cut between Sevens and 15s. Yes there can be limited overlap but 15s really has to cut away on its own to a certain extent and start to develop their own players.

“The Irish Sports Council put a lot of money into Sevens because quite simply there were sniffing a [Olympic] medal.

“They started putting in a lot of money which is a good thing but it just hasn’t worked. You can’t put a Sevens player into a 15s game with virtually no experience.”

Doyle pointed to the disparity in the experience levels of the respective backlines on Saturday.

“If you look at the caps of the players involved on Saturday, there was 104 caps in the Irish backline after a four-year period of trying to build an experienced side. Scotland’s backline had 241 caps.”

Griggs ‘never had consistency in selections’

Doyle added that current Ireland coach Adam Griggs “has never had any consistency in his selections and hence we have ended up where we are”.

“There has been roughly 10 to 12 different outside-halves in four years. There have been 12 different combinations at nine and 10.

“Instead of sticking with X amount of players and coaching them and developing their skills on and off the pitch and through that building your experience into your squad.

“It’s not the union and what they are giving the girls. It coming down to the coaching systems that have been put in place which got it drastically wrong,” added Doyle, who spoke of his surprise at the absence of highly-regarded forward Anna Caplice from the squad at the World Cup qualifiers in Italy.

Doyle believes much of the funds put into the Irish women’s game should be redirected to ensuring that the players can combine their rugby and working careers.

“The Scottish Union works really closely with employers or education-based institutions to lessen players’ workloads and and that has been working really well over the last couple of years.”

IRFU ‘extremely disappointed’

While shocked at Ireland’s failure in Parma, Doyle believes the country now has possibly a one in a lifetime opportunity to get the structures right in women’s rugby.

To this end, he believes the IRFU must focus on supporting the women’s club game in the way that the Rugby Football Union does in England.

“What has got to happen from the powers that be is that they support the coaching infrastructure in the All-Ireland League and also in terms of medical support and strength and conditioning.

“In that way, the new coaching staff that hopefully come into the IRFU will hopefully trust the club coaches to carry out x amount of work with the players.

“The AIL is a fantastic area of growth. Let’s use it. If we can just all work together under the tutelage of the IRFU then there’s only one thing that can happen and that will be a better standard of rugby player that will come out of the club game, leading on to the interprovincials and then on to the national team.

“They do that in England very, very successfully with the Premiership. All those coaches are subsidised by the union as well as the S&C and the medical in the clubs. They are churning out fantastic players from that so why not here.”

Asked to contribute to the Radio Ulster programme, an IRFU statement said that “no more than the players and team management”, it was “extremely disappointed that our women’s team objective of qualifying for the Rugby World Cup has not been achieved”.

“An enormous level of work and commitment from the players, team management and the IRFU high performance team has been given to this campaign over the past 18 months and we would like to thank them all,” added the statement.

“In line with the men’s 2019 Rugby World Cup and all other national team campaigns a review of the women’s XV’s RWC qualifying campaign will be conducted.

“A mix of external consultants and internal stakeholders will be tasked with providing a detailed report to the IRFU high performance unit.”