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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
We are chatting to you still from Ballykilkavan, a farm and brewery here in County Leash as part of the Newstalk Summer Tour. I'm delighted now to be joined by a Leash sporting legend and indeed rugby royalty, former Irish international Alison Miller. Alison, you're very welcome. How are you, Clare? Thank you for being with us here today. We'll give her a round of applause.
Let's welcome Alison to the party. What part of Leash are you from?
Chapter 2: What inspired Alison Miller to start playing rugby?
I'm from Balloch and Wyler, so I went to school in Killeen. I'm now living in Coletian, so I didn't venture too far.
You did not, but you were kind of not late to rugby, but it was, you did other sports first, didn't you?
Oh yeah, we'd be a well-known GA family. My dad and all, well, I'm not sure, nearly all my uncles played football for Leash. So, and my mom was a PE teacher. Yes, we played, oh, everything in our house. There wasn't probably a sport we didn't play. So yeah, I played, did athletics in St. Adams.
Chapter 3: How did Alison's early sports background influence her rugby career?
That would have been my main sport. went to St Leo's in Carlow, which is a very sporty school, did volleyball, hockey, gymnastics, ballet, athletics, Gaelic football. So rugby is probably what I settled on.
So was it love at first sight with the rugby? How did it happen for you?
Yeah, it was actually, it's funny how things happen. It was actually, my dad actually died the summer of 2006, sadly, actually. 20 years ago now. Yeah, 20 years at the weekend. Actually, the weekend before last, we had his 20-year anniversary there.
Chapter 4: What challenges did Alison face when starting rugby as a new sport?
So during that summer and everything, it was a big shock. He was actually managing our local football team in Amore Park. So just then, when I went back to college, it was my last year of college, and I was probably looking for a distraction or... I definitely didn't want to do any study, but I had to, but I was just looking for something.
And two of my friends, Andy and Shane, had always said, I think you'd be really good at rugby. And I took it up that year in college. I hadn't really a clue what I was doing.
Yeah, but it comes from a sort of a, when you go through something like that, you're unsettled. You don't know what you want or what you should be at. So in a way, it was the perfect time for something new to come along.
Yeah, and I kind of, I suppose it was the attitude. You don't know what's around the corner. Life is short. You should try new things.
you should give it a go because maybe it had been in the back of my mind because people had said it to me I had vaguely signed a petition in St Leo's when I was 14 to form a rugby team in Carlow that was the back of my mind I was strong and fast I suppose I had the balls skills from other sports and I just gave it a go and yeah it was
It is a hard sport to take up when you've never played because it doesn't really make sense.
But women's rugby wasn't then what it is now, was it?
No, definitely not. I would have been aware of the team, all right, and I did know my friend Lindsay McHenry. Shout out to Lindsay.
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Chapter 5: What memorable achievements did Alison have while playing for Ireland?
She was the first girl I know to play rugby. I went to school with her in St Leo's, so she was playing for Kilkenny at the time. And the Carlow women had a team at the time.
was aware of it and in my head I never distinguished it as like it was like playing football it was like doing ballet it was like doing gymnastics I didn't ever put oh it's traditionally a male sport or it's that physical it was just another sport that I could play.
So how quickly then did it start to develop for you once you got into it?
Played that year in college. I was playing football for Leash at the same time that I took it up, which they weren't that happy with. I'm sure they weren't. I was only playing football. I just got onto the Leash team. And then I played another year with Leash and then I joined my local, wouldn't be my local team, but it was the nearest Port Leash. I joined Port Leash RFC in...
i can't remember but it was about two years after i took it up in college and we weren't the highest division we were actually the lowest division you could play in the country so i remember playing the first match scored about seven tries and yvonne delaney said turned around to me one of the players that you found your sport you're not going anywhere else this is your sport so played one year in um port leash i went for leinster trials that didn't work out unfortunately didn't get picked for leinster
And I went the kind of the long windy route to Connacht. And yeah, following year I was playing for Ireland. So about a year. It was quick, you know. Yeah. But as your friend, as Yvonne said, you found your sport. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: How did Alison cope with the pressures of playing at the international level?
a good athlete. I'd won all Ireland schools medals in athletics, I could play county football, was diligent, came from a family of sporty people. Dad was bigot, was GA. It was kind of second nature, so I was able to apply myself. Look, it was sink or swim stuff at Irish camp. Every week I was just hanging on. I was like, okay, I'll try and stay in this weekend, because you get dropped.
Did you find it very tough then when you were with the Ireland team?
in the beginning yes as in the the drill the games like just let me play a game when i went to the game i was like yeah i'm fine it was i suppose the technical tactical stuff i struggled at because i wasn't playing that long so you're in the middle of drills or game based things and you probably should know certain stuff when you don't but you're just kind of hanging staying at the back looking what's going on you know just staying afloat absorbing it all absorbing it all what are they doing here i'm staying at the back you never make the mistake going to the front and uh
Yeah, I was athletic enough to cope, but I was very green and very raw.
What are your great memories, though, from that time playing for Ireland?
Oh, well, obviously, it would have to be going from, like, our first year, I played 2010. We won about three games. You know, we didn't beat England, we didn't beat France then, to the 2013 year. We'd never won a Grand Slam, we'd never beat England. We'd only beaten France once. So that year then we bet England for the first time.
I scored a hat-trick in the first half and then we went on to beat France and we won the Grand Slam, which led on then to 2014, beating the Black Ferns. And I scored a try in that game. Luckily enough, we made the World Cup semi-final, which was a big thing at the time.
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Chapter 7: What significant injury impacted Alison's rugby career?
Huge deal. Like huge. And I probably, you know, your life moves on, which is good, because I never want to be obsessed about anything again the way I was obsessed with rugby. Like I don't. You're very definite about that.
How obsessed were you?
Yeah, like I was, I was intense. I suppose I don't give off that air probably because I'm quite, you know, jokey, laughy, but I took it very seriously and I put a lot of work into it. And I am an obsessive type anyway. Like I definitely like, you know, if I put my mind to something, I'll do it. which pros and cons to being like that for different things.
So it was one thing in your life and it was rugby. Yeah, at the time I tried to be more well-rounded because I understood that it's not good to be like that. So you try and be more balanced as a person to have hobbies, because when you get injured, then you can't just see yourself as a player. So I was well aware of the contradictions of my personality. But people are like, do you want to coach?
And I'm like, I don't know if I want to be obsessed. that obsessed with anything ever again. So do you stay back from coaching then? I'm getting asked to do a lot of coaching at the moment, but I have two young kids, like a five-year-old and a 15-month-old.
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Chapter 8: How has women's rugby evolved since Alison's playing days?
And if you're coaching, I don't like to have to do something. So if I was going to do something, I would like to give it my all.
I think I'd be terrified of you if you were coaching me, because I can see where you're coming from, that you'd get in there thinking that you'd be, you know, dealing with it like any other person. But I'd say the intensity that you bring is secondary.
which is great in a way but yeah i think any there's probably a lot of leash footballers out there or carlo footballers i remember my dad same same deal similar but and i do help out like i like to just kind of give advice to teams or go in and do some guest sessions or just help out go in and do i still like that because i i might like to coach in the future and you but that's you have to kind of keep your foot in the game too and not get left behind
You had a really serious injury, didn't you, towards the end of your playing career?
Yeah, 2018. I was thinking of retiring that year. So in the second game of Six Nations, yeah, I broke my leg, double leg break, compound fracture. So that, yeah, that was really bad. Same as what Seamus Coleman did in around the same time.
kind of didn't think I'd go back and play but I just I couldn't leave it like that I couldn't leave the last memory being stretched off the field so went back the following year and retired and it probably suited because we were going through a difficult time on the pitch performance wise it's great to see that it's moved on like you know that the girls are playing really well because they were difficult times at the time we just you know the support wasn't behind us
And things have changed a lot even since then, haven't they?
Do you keep in touch with the setup and do you keep in touch with how... Yeah, I wouldn't know as much as probably I should, but like I know from talking to players, yeah, look, they're contracted. They had a really good World Cup. They were so unlucky in the World Cup. They could have been in a semi-final.
So from going, like they had a really, I think it was 2022 or 2023, they had a really poor year. They didn't win any games or Six Nations. And now they have like Aoife Wafer as player of the championship two years running. They've, you know... I see a grand slam in them, which is great because you want that for them.
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