Megan Burns has been handed the captaincy as Ireland Women’s Sevens open their Rugby Europe Women’s Championship Series campaign in Hamburg.
Head coach James Topping has named a 13-player squad for the opening leg, with Ireland beginning Pool A at Sportanlage Sportwiesenweg against Belgium on Friday morning before a sharper afternoon test against Great Britain. The pool stage then closes against Denmark on Saturday.
The selection gives Ireland’s women’s programme another useful read on its sevens depth, because the headline call is not just Burns leading the group. The inclusion of Kyah Coady adds a genuine development thread after her route through the IRFU Talent Identification Combine at the University of Limerick.
Burns gives Ireland proven sevens authority
Burns brings the strongest reference point in the squad. Team Ireland’s athlete profile records her involvement in Ireland’s historic Olympic women’s rugby sevens debut at Paris 2024, where Ireland finished eighth, and notes she had already reached 137 World Series appearances by the Games.
That matters in Hamburg. Ireland’s squad blends established sevens operators with players still building tournament rhythm, and Burns’ role should give Topping a firm decision-maker across a compressed pool schedule.
Coady call keeps pathway pressure high
The most intriguing selection is Coady, whose background includes football in the Dutch Eredivisie and Treaty United before she was identified through the IRFU pathway. The IRFU confirmed Alana McInerney, Alanna Fitzpatrick, Amy Larn, Chisom Ugwueru, Clare Gorman, Faith Oviawe, Kathy Baker, Katie Corrigan, Lucia Linn, Maggie Boylan and Niamh Murphy complete the travelling group.
For Ireland, Hamburg is less about ceremony than evidence: whether Burns’ experience can stabilise the side quickly, and whether Coady’s acceleration into the squad points to another viable route into elite sevens.
