Erin King on viral Paris 2024 moment: 'I do that every day in training!'

Ireland’s Erin King has had a whirlwind year. From representing Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympics, going viral on social media, and starring in Ireland’s historic win over New Zealand on only her fifth senior XVs game, the 21-year-old is now also in the running for World Rugby Women’s 15s Breakthrough Player of the Year.

She spoke to RugbyPass following Ireland’s final WXV 1 victory over the USA at Vancouver’s BC Place about some standout moments this year.

“I didn’t expect to go viral, it’s something that I do every day in sevens training,” she said with a laugh, reflecting on her lift of teammate Emily Lane in their Olympic match against Great Britain which did the rounds on social media.

Get yourself a teammate who can…

Ireland’s Erin King literally carried Emily Lane on her back in the #Olympics rugby sevens. 🤝 💪#Paris2024 #bbcolympics pic.twitter.com/gf9OZf9IHp

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 31, 2024

“Afterwards I saw it on Twitter [X] and things like that. It just shows that so many women that play rugby are capable of doing amazing things like that. So many people were shocked at what we can do, but there are so many women in rugby that can do that, so many women in Ireland that play rugby that can do things like that.

“It was actually a positive that we could show that we’re capable of doing things like that and that women’s rugby is entertaining. Come and watch the games, we can put on a show.”

The Olympic Games was certainly a highlight of 2024 for rugby, the women’s game in particular. Records were broken, with crowd figures reaching 66,000, the most to date for a women’s rugby event. USA player Ilona Maher also further launched the sport into the stratosphere with her growing social media platforms and the team’s bronze medal.

Maher, who is the most-followed rugby player on social media of all time with 4.4 million followers on Instagram alone, is currently a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and will compete for the title in the finale with partner Alan Bersten on 26 November at 8pm ET.

“The Olympics was amazing. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve been with the sevens since I was 17 so it was a big goal, and for our Irish team we tried to qualify twice before and we never did it so it was the first Irish women’s team to go,” King said with pride.

 

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“With the sevens and the XVs we’re just trying to grow women’s rugby in Ireland and show girls that they can play for their country and they can do it for a living and professionally. It’s so good how we are right now, we’re one big team the sevens and the XVs, we can transfer over and loads of the skills transfer.

“There’s a good crew of us that go between both. The Olympics was great and for the experiences playing in front of the crowds; it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

“It’s growing and growing. Obviously, Ilona Maher is doing Dancing with the Stars at the moment which is amazing. She’s so good for putting rugby on the map and I think the USA girls put in such a performance to get the bronze, it’s growing over there like it is with us. The standard is getting better and better and I can’t wait for the World Cup, it’s going to be the biggest one yet.”

In just four senior international appearances for the 15s team, King has scored four tries, and has amassed over 100 HSBC SVNS Series games in the green jersey with the sevens side. The switch to 15s has been seamless for King by their ‘Green Wave’.

“It’s been amazing,” she said.  “It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a while. Last year my main focus was the Olympics and I went and got to go and do that and I’m so fortunate that I got an opportunity to be a part of this XVs team because they’re in such a good place and they’ve been working so hard.

“It was so seamless for me to fit in and the girls made it so easy. We talk about belief in this team a lot and we talk about our Green Wave and that’s our culture. They made it so easy for me come in and learn.”

King made her 15s debut from the bench against Australia in Ireland’s preparations for WXV 1, and went on to be a standout performer in Canada.

In their opening match against reigning back-to-back Women’s Rugby World Cup champions New Zealand, King had a game-changing impact from the bench, her second try levelling the scores in the 79th minute before Dannah O’Brien’s conversion settled the 29-17 scoreline.

“It was amazing. That was my second cap. We just knew going out that we could do it and that’s the most important thing. We kept that belief throughout the whole game. I was lucky to go over twice. It felt surreal, but it was one of the best days I’ve had in the green jersey for sure.”

Ireland went on to face Canada and the USA in WXV 1 and added a second win with their 26-14 victory over the Eagles on the penultimate day of competition.

In 2023, Ireland won the third level of WXV 3 in Dubai, but their third-place finish in the following Six Nations earned them a well-deserved place to compete with the best teams in the world.

Next year’s Rugby World Cup will see Ireland face New Zealand for only the fourth time in their history. Ireland’s women’s team currently have the best ratio of results in the world against the six-time World Cup champions with two victories, their first coming ten years ago in the RWC 2014 pool stages which meant New Zealand didn’t qualify for the knockout stages.

The result in 2014 meant they were the first Irish rugby team, men’s or women’s, to beat the illustrious rugby giants New Zealand.

WXV has provided teams with vital game time ahead of next year’s Rugby World Cup.

“It’s great for our confidence and we’re just going to keep building,” King said. “With the World Cup in the summer, it’s great experience. We’ve only played the Black Ferns for example twice before we played them in WXV.

“Even Canada we haven’t played much, so it’s great just to get the experience against teams like this and show that we can compete at this standard and keep driving and building on that. We’d only been together before this for six weeks so I feel like there’s so much in this team and we’re going to grow so much. I can’t wait to see what can do.

“It was really important for us to get that last win against the USA. It just shows that we can compete with the teams in WXV 1. We were definitely underdogs coming into this tournament and there was worry that we weren’t ready for WXV 1 because obviously we had the jump straight from WXV 3 to WXV 1.

“We have so much belief in our team and we’ve been working and training so hard. We’ve been able to show the world what we can do and that we’re capable of competing with the best.”

King is nominated alongside England’s Maddie Feaunati, Australia’s teenage superstar Caitlyn Halse, and New Zealand’s Hannah King for World Rugby’s Women’s 15s Breakthrough Player of the Year award.

The World Rugby Awards will take place on 24 November in Monaco, with England duo Alex Matthews and Ellie Kildunne, French scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus, and Canada playmaker Alex Tessier all nominated for World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year.