With the Women’s All Ireland League set to resume this coming weekend we have a look at who’s been doing what as the teams prepare to go into the business end of the season.
The refixed fixture between St Mary’s College and Blackrock College went ahead on the 5th January with Blackrock recording a 12 – 64 win at Templeville Road. This leaves the league as follows.
Home or Away?
Looking at the results in terms of points picked up at home and away we get the following. (The percentages are calculated as a % of a maximum of 5 points per match)
Key: AL – Away Loss, ALB – Away Loss with Bonus, AW – Away Win, AWB – Away Win with Bonus Point, HL – Home Loss, HLB- Home Loss with Bonus, BB – Try and Losing Bonus awarded, NF – No Fixture, WOW – Walk Over Win (awarded 5 pts) WOL – Walk Over Loss (deducted 2 pts).
With the play off method in place for deciding the AIL champions in this competition, finishing top of the league at the end of the regular season may only be a fleeting accolade, however the teams still see it as an important advantage going into the playoffs.
With five rounds still to be played everyone down to Cooke have a mathematical chance of finishing the regular season at the top of the pile but the realistic options appear to be between UL Bohs and Railway.
UL Boh’s are the only team undefeated at home this season, failing to pick up five points in only one of their three home game (note one home game was a walk over win against St Mary’s) and with three of their four remaining fixtures at home they must be favourites to finish top of the table at the end of the season.
Railway Union lost one game at home, though they did pick up a losing bonus, but their impressive away form of 70% has kept them level with their rivals Bohs. Their league season will be defined in February when they travel to Bohs and Rock in back to back matches but with that 70% points haul on the road they will travel with confidence.
Current Form
Discounting the non fixtures and only looking at games where match points were awarded, the current form of the teams is as follows.
Last Five Played Form
With the bulk of the above results picked up during preparations for the November International fixtures the above form is probably a more realistic representation of how the teams are performing without their international players which is likely how the next three rounds are going to be played.
Old Belvedere will be looking over their shoulder at Blackrock who look well set to make a push for third place. In fact Blackrock and Cooke are the only two sides who show a higher points pick up over the last five games than they do for the full season. Blackrock’s return of 60% moves them into third place on current form and Cooke’s 44% return moves them up to 5th. However the Ulster club will need to show a points return well above this rate if they are to make a serious challenge for the top four.
Who’s been doing what?
Top Points Scorers
There are three players out in front for points scored with UL Bohemian’s Niamh Briggs leading the way. Brigg’s has, unsurprisingly, dominated UL Bohs kicking duties and has a 67% conversion rate.
Denise Redmond’s five tries keep her in the hunt but with Galwegians having a 48% conversion rate she will need to find a few more off the tee if she is to challenge Briggs at the end of the season.
Hannah O’Connor has kept Blackrock’s scoreboard ticking over with five penalties, the most in the league, and her points tally is impressive given she has shared kicking duties with Jackie Shiels, the pair having the second highest conversion rate in the league with a 68% conversion rate.
St Mary’s have the best conversion rate of all clubs at 75%. Unfortunately, the Templeville Road side haven’t scored enough tries to get their kickers Jet Duinmeijer and Shayne Richardson into the upper end of the table.
Top Try Scorers.
Old Belvedere’s Linda Djougang leads the way with 6 tries in their 8 games showing the sort of form that saw her selected for the trials game against Wales at the weekend, as was Blackrock’s Michelle Claffey who is hot on Djougang’s heels with five tries so far this season.
The rest of the AIL leading scorers have largely been overlooked by the Ireland selectors and Denise Redmond, Gemma Matthews, Niamh Byrne, Susan Vaughn and Chloe Pearse should look at the next three games as an opportunity to get a few tries in the bag while Djougang and Claffey are busy on Ireland duty.
The FRU Players Player
The teams have been nominating their opposition’s player of the game throughout this series and the leading nominees are shown below.
Everyone’s favourite Canadian, Railway Union’s Emma Taylor, leads the way with four nominations so far this season but Cooke’s unsung hero Beth Cregan and St Mary’s Duinmeijer, who arrived this season from the Netherlands, are hot on her heels with three nominations each.
Behind the top three are another seven players with two nominations including Belvo’s Djougang and Railway’s Claire Keohane, the only two of our top ten nominations to be included in last weekend’s extended Ireland squad.
Team Stats
You can view the individual team stats by clicking the appropriate team below.
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