Date of birth | 12 August 1981 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Place of birth | Tralee, Republic of Ireland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation(s) | Marketing manager | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ruth O'Reilly (born 12 August 1981) is a retired women's rugby union player from Tralee, County Kerry, Republic of Ireland. She played as a prop for Galwegians RFC, Connacht Rugby and the Ireland women's national rugby union team. [1]
O'Reilly started playing rugby in 2002. [2] In 2014, she captained Galwegians to victory in the Women's All Ireland League. [1] She also became an assistant coach for Connacht Ladies and the manager of the Ireland women's Under-17 rugby sevens team. [3]
O'Reilly made her debut for Ireland in 2012. [2] During this same year, she was part of the Ireland women's team that missed a connection and spent 17 hours on an overnight train travelling from Paris to Pau for a Women's Six Nations Championship match against the France women's national rugby union team, arriving only shortly before the match. [4] In 2017, she was selected as part of Ireland's team for the 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup hosted in Ireland. During the tournament, Ireland failed to reach the semi-finals and O'Reilly was forced to leave the team due to injury. [5] Before Ireland's seventh place playoff, she wrote an article published in The Irish Times criticising the Irish Rugby Football Union for a lack of support of women's rugby and the Ireland manager Tom Tierney for having "lost the dressing room". [2] Following Ireland's loss in the playoff in Belfast, Northern Ireland; fellow player Lindsay Peat defended O'Reilly for writing the article after criticism that it was O'Reilly's article that caused Ireland's loss. [6] O'Reilly retired from rugby afterwards. [7]
O'Reilly originally worked as a marketing manager at a hotel before moving in 2010 to become a marketing and event manager for a medical company in Galway, County Galway. [3]
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