After only running half an All Ireland League competition before Christmas the IRFU have decided to fill the second half of the season for elite women’s teams with the All Ireland Cup, but in a league format. Well, there you go!

One team, anyway, will have been happy to see the back off the Women’s AIL having not picked up a single match point and they got their Cup campaign off to the best of starts with a bonus point win against Ballincollig after a shaky enough start.

It was a fairly even opening quarter with the play focused round the center of the park. Ballincollig got the scoreboard ticking over after half an hour with a fine try by fullback Heather Kennedy who had been threatening all match.