Ireland may not have claimed victory in this year’s Six Nations, with France’s last-minute win over England thanks to a penalty scored by tournament standout Thomas Ramos.
Regardless, there was still much to be happy about, with the form of Jamison Gibson-Park and Stuart McCloskey impressing many and indicating that the level Ireland are performing at could even be improved upon as long as their top players perform.
Add to this some potential future stars in the ranks, like Connacht’s Billy Bohan and Ulster’s Bryn Ward, and there is an optimistic feel around where Ireland are headed towards in relation to next year’s Six Nations, as well as the World Cup.
But the situation surrounding one of Ireland’s youngsters, who made his debut versus Italy as his team won 20-13, marred the occasion of what was meant to be an exciting day.
‘Significant amount’ of ‘homegrown’ racial abuse thrown at prop Edwin Edogbo
Edwin Edogbo managed to get his Munster career back on track after spending almost two years unavailable for the province thanks to an achilles injury suffered in 2023.
The loose-head lock has played six games in the United Rugby Championship and four games in the Champions Cup this season at the time of writing—and was called up by Andy Farrell ahead of the 2026 Six Nations.
But racist abuse directed towards the 23-year-old online has turned what was meant to be a brilliant moment for a young talent into a matter for the Irish police, known as the Gardai.
Jonathan Sebire, one of the founders of data science company Signify, has revealed in an interview with RTÉ that a majority of these comments were sent from Irish accounts:
“There was a spike of abuse [directed towards Edogbo] that was primarily racist in nature… within that, it covered… what we might look for, which is explicitly racist, very serious abuse, all the way down into kind of grey areas that go below and into debate about the nature of Irishness.
“In this case, there was the majority was actually coming from Irish accounts or from fans of the rugby team. There were actually quite a few based in the United States from the expat community, but there was a significant amount that was kind of homegrown and coming from accounts based in Ireland.”
The IRFU have been clear on what will happen if they are able to identify any perpetrators behind these comments, stating that if any accounts are “found to have links to rugby club members”, the association “will not hesitate to take action.”
