Aoibheann Reilly: 'Nothing can compare to pulling back on an Ireland jersey'

For the jersey presentations, a couple of days before Aoibheann Reilly’s senior Ireland debut in 2022, Brian O’Driscoll dropped by to do the honours. Almost 20 years after she had first posed for a picture with the Irish rugby legend, as a toddler, Reilly was positively beaming.

“It was kind of this full circle moment,” Reilly told RugbyPass. “Ireland were doing an open training session at Buccaneers (ahead of the 2003 World Cup), in Athlone. Their ground is only 20 minutes from our family house. My dad brought myself and my two brothers along. We got loads of pictures with the players, although I don’t look too pleased in any of them!

“Getting my jersey from Brian was a special moment. He was the first rugby player that every kid from my generation looked up to so, yeah, it was cool.”

Reilly hails from a family fuelled by sport. Her mother, Fionnuala, loved swimming while father, Stephen, was passionate about rugby. He was principal at Garbally College, where Reilly’s brothers, Donnacha and Colm attended. Colm, like his sister, plays scrum-half for Connacht.

“We were all down, around the same time, playing minis and underage rugby in Ballinasloe. My dad was coaching there, and was heavily involved through our minis and underage rugby. It’s always been a family affair, the rugby. My mum wanted to get us into swimming, but didn’t really succeed there!

“Growing up, and playing, with Colm gave me really high standards for myself. I was always trying to be as good as he was and have the same skill-set. He really understands the rugby life, and how it is not always glamorous. Donnacha is over in New York, and is our biggest supporter. He took a bit of time off work, last year, to get over and cheer me on at the World Cup.

“My parents have been my rocks, through everything. They love getting along to all my games. My dad even asks if he can go along to the in-house games we often have. He’s obsessed with it. They have been there for the highs and the lows.”

Reilly’s main sport, in her formative years, was swimming. She trained with, and competed for, Athlone Swimming Club and got to that stage where she was doing pool sessions before and after school.

“I didn’t get much of a growth spurt,” she noted, “so, once it got to that more competitive level, in the senior age groups, I fell out of love with the sport. When you are running around, playing team sports, it’s hard to compare that to staring at tiles at the bottom of the pool.”

The sport that turned Reilly’s head was Gaelic football.

“My club, in Ballinasloe, was Pádraig Pearses and I played some camogie and football there. I played at school, too, then with Roscommon, up until Under 16s. Our house was right on the border of Galway and Roscommon. There is literally a field between our house and the border. I went to school in Ballinsloe, Galway, but my club was in Roscommon. Béibhinn Parsons was my teammate in the school’s GAA team but I played against her at county level, as she played with Galway.”

“We got to an All-Ireland ‘B’ final with Roscommon,” she added. “We lost, but that was still the pinnacle of my GAA career. I played with Heather Payne, who now plays soccer for the Irish women’s team. She was a good friend, growing up, and played with me at Pádraig Pearses. She played community rugby games and I tried to get her into it fully, but she went for soccer.”

Reilly’s friendship with Parsons is one that has travelled, and grown, from club rugby through underage with Connacht and Ireland, Sevens and, last year, representing their country at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. Their bond started when they played at Ballinasloe RFC, as nine-year-olds.

“Our team,” she recalled, “was the first one ever set up for girls. I played scrum-half, Béibhinn was on the wing and Méabh Deely was out 10. In 2018, when Connacht won the Under-18 Interprovincial Championships, 11 of that team were from Ballinasloe.

“It was a mixture of girls from three GAA clubs in the area, so we had a big player pool. Myself, Béibhinn and Méabh all progressed through the ranks together, so no-one really batted an eyelid when we were playing for Connacht, then Ireland. But many didn’t realise how rare it was to have three girls from this small club representing their province, and country.”

 

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Reilly, Parsons and Deely were part of the senior Connacht team that reached the Interprovincial Championship final in 2019, when they fell to Leinster. She began studying at University College Dublin and had ambitions to break into the senior Ireland squad, when a Sevens contract was presented.

“XVs was always my first love,” says Reilly, “but I wanted to be a professional rugby player. I was going to do anything to do that. Sevens gave me an opportunity to develop other areas of my game. It was great for focusing on specialised skills, like, tackle, pass, catch-pass-run.

“Our trip to Perth, and winning our first Sevens World Series [HSBC SVNS Series] title, was the peak of my time there. We went over very early to get acclimatised, with jet lag and all that. I don’t know what it was but we just had an amazing energy, that whole week, and knew we could do something special. To beat Australia for the first time, and win that first ever series title, was unreal.”

That sevens triumph came in between devastating knee injuries – Anterior Cruciate Ligament, on both occasions – for Reilly. The first injury, to her right knee, came during a training session, in 2023. The second arrived during the Sevens Grand Finals, held in Madrid, in June 2024.

“Unfortunately,” she reflected, “the injuries came so early in my career, so it was very hard to build momentum. I won my first XVs cap against Wales, then went to sevens, started well there but did my right ACL. I was around a year getting back from that, but returned for the Interpros with Connacht, and played a season of 15s and sevens.

“I had my eye on the Paris Olympics in 2024, so played the first half of the sevens Series and came back for the Six Nations, when we qualified for the (2025) World Cup. I linked back up with the sevens team then did my left ACL, a month before the Olympics. I was just heartbroken.”

“With ACLs,” she added, “you just know when it goes. You get this popping sensation in your knee and you know, straight away, it is gone. Everyone around me knew, from my reaction, how bad it was. That I would miss out on the Olympics. My parents were up in the stands and were heartbroken for me.

“I think they take injuries worse than I do. It is a horrible thing to go through but, at the end of the day, that’s the cards you are dealt and you have to get on with it. It’s not the end of the world, and they were not career-ending injuries. I tried, those times, to focus on the next thing, and develop other parts of my game, for when I come back.

“You do spend a lot of time on your own, coming back from injury. That needs a lot of self-motivation, getting through hard days. But, when you get there, nothing can compare to pulling back on an Ireland jersey. I feel everyone would do the exact same thing, if they were in my shoes. It just makes the days in green even sweeter, when you know you’ve worked really hard to be there.”

An undoubted positive from Reilly’s second spell on the sidelines arrived when she got an invite from the men’s senior squad.

Reilly explained: “I was alongside the men’s team analysts, for their November series, which was unreal. Vinnie Hammond is the head analyst there. He took me in, taught me how to code, and to break down plays. It was a really cool insight, and a way to see areas of the game that you would not get to see as a spectator. I was also sitting in on meetings, learning from their coaches, improving my rugby IQ and seeing the game from an analyst’s perspective.”

Reilly made it back for the 2025 Guinness women’s Six Nations and lined out for Ireland on their run to the Women’s Rugby World Cup quarter finals, later that year. She missed this year’s Women’s Six Nations after breaking her fibula, but is hopeful the next stretch will be injury free. For the current Vodafone Interprovincial Championship, the 25-year-old is Connacht’s co-captain, along with Ailish Quinn.

“It feels strange, being in a senior player role,” she admitted. “I don’t really think I’m that old, but that’s just the nature of our squad, this year. We have such a young group. A lot of them were getting their Leaving Cert results, last week and I was, like, oh my god, this is insane. It made me feel very old. It has been great, though.

“Sometimes, you get imposter syndrome and wonder why they would want to be listening to be, but that is another challenge. You are not just thinking about your own game, but looking to bring others with you, drive standards, look after younger players and make sure everyone is enjoying it.”

Connacht kicked off their championship campaign with an away win over Ulster, but fell to Leinster and Munster in the next two rounds. This Saturday, they face Ulster again in what will effectively be a third-fourth place clash. Reilly has been inspired by the raft of positive changes at Connacht, in recent years, including The Sportsground’s impressive Dexcom Stadium revamp.

“We’re a very young group but hopefully, in a few years,” she remarked, “we’ll be like Munster, bashing teams every weekend.”

Reilly was with the Ireland squad for a mini camp, during the championship, and is hopeful of featuring in the upcoming WXV Global Series matches against USA and Japan, before October’s tour to South Africa. This is what she dreamed of as a young ball-girl, at Ashbourne RFC and at the UCD Bowl, during Irish Six Nations and at the 2017 Rugby World Cup.

“The growth in the women’s game, in such a short space of time,” she said, “has been amazing. Playing in front of 77,000 at Twickenham, then nearly 32,000 at Aviva Stadium, when we were having attendances, last year, of six and seven-thousand, only the year before. The growth has been insane and, hopefully, it can only go up.”