The remarkable rise of Cill Dara international Sarah Delaney

Sarah Delaney made her Ireland rugby debut against Kazakhstan in October and in doing so made history for both herself and her club, Cill Dara RFC.

The now 19-year-old became the first player to be capped for the Ireland senior women's rugby team after coming solely through the Cill Dara underrage system.

Sarah has made her name in provincial and Irish under-age rugby at hooker for the last few years after a young career full of positional shifts. The Cill Dara star picked up a try on her debut in Ireland’s WXV opener and 109-0 win in what was head coach Scott Bemand’s first game in charge.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting my first senior Ireland game to be in Dubai, even if you were telling me that I would make the team I wouldn’t have believed you to be honest,” Sarah said.

Not long after coming onto the field, Sarah would cross the line for a try as her team crossed the 100-point mark following a set-play that she was central to.

“We got the penalty and the lineout and, to be honest, I was just focused on my own job to get it in and throw it straight. We were on our 22m or just outside it, I knew we were mauling it. I was expecting a good drive, but the last thing I was expecting was a try,” Sarah explained.

“The maul just kind of kept going, kept rolling, then we stopped for a couple of seconds so I thought that was it. Then we took off again and we were at the line. And I absolutely dove on it. It was an unbelievable feeling and even nicer to have all the girls around me too, they were delighted for me. They had done all the hard work, I just had to hold onto the back of the maul and celebrate with them afterwards.”

It was an incredible moment for the young player from Rathangan. It would have been hard for Sarah to imagine scoring a senior try for Ireland earlier in the year as she was making her way back from a long-term injury.

LEINSTER U18S
“I started up with Leinster U18s, I had one more year with them, but I was only in with them for a week and I did my ankle. I did a bad job, I fractured my tibia, dislocated the fibula and tore all the ligaments. I had to have full ankle reconstruction surgery and I was out then for 11 months,” Sarah said.

A terrible injury that meant Sarah was only back running in the early part of the summer of 2023, but she went from strength to strength following her return.

“The idea was to come back to the club and play a few matches and get my confidence back up, but no way did I think my first match back was going to be with Ireland U20s, so that was nice too,” Sarah recalled.

“The week before the Interpro final with Leinster I got an email about the selection camp for the Ireland senior team. You train for two weeks and then they make cuts from the squad. After that we came back for another week and then we flew to Dubai.

So this year has definitely been a whirlwind, which I hadn’t expected at all. I went from zero to absolutely 100 in the space of a couple of months.”

After the fast-track back and chaotic few months, Sarah had to contend with a lot more than her own fitness as she made the jump from underrage rugby to senior international and provincial competitions.

“I actually hadn’t played senior club rugby before I did it for Leinster and Ireland so I was definitely getting the step up to playing with top level players but also the physical side as well,” Sarah explained.

“Even my first scrum with Leinster, in U18s you only push 1.5m, and I think we were driving Ulster on metres in a friendly match and I couldn’t believe we were still going because I was so used to the metre and a half.

“It’s unreal, it’s a lot more fast paced and physical, it’s class. But it was nice to then get back to the club and finally make my senior debut.”

It was an exceptional return for the hooker after one of the worst possible sporting injuries that saw her sidelined for nearly a year. But Sarah’s time away from the field was far from wasted as she got involved with the coaching side of things at her club and North Midlands rugby.

The thrills of now being an international rugby player is cause for great excitement, but the Cill Dara RFC player reflects fondly on her time coming through the ranks at her club.

“I have had lots of great days with Cill Dara and my first kind of taste of success with rugby was winning the Leinster Shield at U14s. Then two weeks later I got called up to help the U16s win their Leinster Cup. So winning two Leinster finals in the space of a month was nice,” Sarah recalled.

“Then of course for the U18s we amalgamated with Portarlington, so we are PortDara for the girls side. We were together for two years and in the last year of U18 we won the Leinster Cup against Wicklow, our massive rivals, so that was a huge one.

We kinda got thrown into the top group the first year that we were together. We were definitely the underdogs, but we were making semi-finals and it was always Wicklow that was pipping us at the end so it was really nice that year to win the cup in 2022 beating them.”

Sarah said she owes much of her early inspiration to her “sports mad” family and after watching countless hours of rugby on the television, decided to have a go herself.

“Dad would have played rugby when he was younger and we would always watch the matches together. I just jumped at the opportunity and I’d say I was seven or so starting in Cill Dara, but there were no games yet,” Sarah recalled.

“Then it was the summer of 2014, when I was nine, there was a Leinster summer camp in the club and I did that. I got chatting to a few coaches after and they said there was an U12 girl team starting. That winter I went down and started playing for Cill Dara, I started at nine with the U12s and went the whole way up to U18s then.”

Sarah of course went on to make her Ireland senior debut and in doing so made history as the first Cill Dara RFC player to do so coming solely through their underrage system. For her achievements, she was honoured with an “Excellence in Rugby” award at a club event on December 12.

“It was lovely to have my family there, it was such a nice idea,” Sarah said.

“I am just so grateful for the club and for everything they have done. They have been a huge support the whole pathway from club to North Midlands, to Leinster so it’s been class to have them.

“I had a few past coaches there too so I am super grateful for all the work they put into me. It was just so great to see all the numbers out as well because they had all the minis girls out as well and all the youth teams. It was unreal to see the amount of numbers and that there is lots of potential coming up.

“It’s a class milestone to be the first one to go fully through the system, it’s unbelievable, and hopefully there will be many more to come.”