Aoife Wafer: Awards, accolades, and how Ireland can be the best in the world
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What awards has Aoife Wafer recently won?
OK, you're very welcome along to a special RTE Rugby podcast. A little out of the blue this one, but I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Aoife Wafer for the second year in a row and for the first time ever, a back-to-back Guinness Women's Six Nations Player of the Championship. Aoife, congratulations.
Cheers. Thank you very much.
How did Aoife Wafer react to winning the Player of the Championship award?
And thanks for having me as well.
I know it's a pleasure to have you on. As I said, second year in a row this has happened. It was announced to you and everyone yesterday afternoon. You might talk us through how it happened because it all came about a little bit as a surprise to yourself. You obviously knew you were in the mix for it, but you were at an event yesterday and you weren't really expecting it to be announced there and then.
Yeah, like I knew I was nominated for it alongside some other brilliant athletes as well. And yeah, I was told I hadn't won it a few weeks ago when the voting closed. So I was kind of like just getting out of rehab, all that kind of crack and got an email from... from one of the media people in the RFU, and they were like, oh, look, Six Nations need a few PWR London-based players to go to an event to, I suppose, celebrate how record-breaking this Six Nations has been.
What challenges did Aoife face during the Six Nations campaign?
And went, and they were like, are any of the Queens girls going to the PWR and the Prem Awards were that night as well. So they were like, oh, is there any Queens girls going to that as well? And I was like, yeah, there's a few. I can ask if they want to go, but I don't know if they'd be interested in sitting in a room doing media all day, but... We'll try, like. And then I think the manager at Quinn's had rang them kind of without me knowing and being like, yeah, Aoife's won this award and, like, you should go. So, yeah, I think I only got a bit suspicious when we were, like, walking along to the brewery house in London and they were kind of all behind me as if I knew where I was going. I hadn't a notion, like.
And then got up, like, to the floor that we were meant to be on and, they were like oh if you go into the room first like you yeah you you go in i was like like what are you doing like why why aren't you going into the room um and i sat down then and they all sat opposite me they wouldn't sit beside me and i was like right something's going on here because this is weird um so yeah and then i suppose it got announced then at the at the brewery house so no it was it was very cool like and it was a lovely little event like there was a there was a couple of um like content creators there was a bit of media there as well and and then it was just special to have the girls there with me too
I like the fact that not only did they not tell you you were going to win it, but as you said, they told you you hadn't won it. Did you think you know who had won it?
Yeah, yeah. So they told me that I hadn't won it and that somebody else had won it. And I was like, oh yeah, fair enough.
How does Aoife Wafer prepare for rugby matches?
But to be honest, like it could have been any of the four that were nominated, couldn't it? Like the other three nominees were brilliant this campaign. Like you speak about Meg Jones and the influence she has on England and Bourdain-Sansu on France. And then the same with Scorbini, like she's been phenomenal for Italy. So yeah. I was kind of just like, yeah, that's fair enough. And I suppose when you're up against the likes of England or France, the following that they have is insane. So I think it just goes down to show how much the Green Wave is growing and how much support Irish people really have now.
You're obviously still very early and very young in your career, but you've racked up a fair few awards over the last two, three seasons. Are yourself or your parents running out of room on the mantelpiece at home?
Yeah.
Well, I brought it in here because I had to do a little event this morning and I couldn't do my rehab in the morning. So the physio was like, right, if you're going to be late, you have to at least bring in the award to show us. So I brought it in and they were slagging me that the award's way over, I'd say, 10 kilos and they're quite big.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What awards has Aoife Wafer recently won?
0:07–0:24
2
How did Aoife Wafer react to winning the Player of the Championship award?
0:24–1:16
3
What challenges did Aoife face during the Six Nations campaign?
1:16–2:51
4
How does Aoife Wafer prepare for rugby matches?
2:51–4:00
5
What insights does Aoife have about team dynamics and confidence?
4:00–5:39
6
How does Aoife view the growth of women's rugby in Ireland?
5:39–7:54
7
What are Aoife's goals for the upcoming rugby season?
7:54–9:28
8
How does Aoife plan to contribute to Ireland's success in future competitions?
9:28–25:48
Speakers
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