Grand Slam Champions. Get in there!

It was wet, it was mucky and it wasn’t exactly high-scoring, free flowing rugby, but the Irish women’s rugby team are Grand Slam champions and that’s all that matters.

As tends to be the way when the stakes are so high, it was an incredibly tense affair in Milan this afternoon, while the conditions were of the kind you’d expect to see in the depths of a wet Irish winter rather than Italy in the middle of March.

As a result, it was hardly a surprise that there were only three scores in the entire game, two penalties from Niamh Briggs, one in either half, and one from Italy’s Veronica Schiavon, which arrived after only two minutes.

Italy threatened to score and level matters towards the end and the clock seemed to be winding down at an agonisingly slow pace before the final whistle eventually blew and Ireland’s success was sealed.

As you can see above there were joyous scenes afterwards but the party was only starting and the celebrations will likely last well into next week; by God, they’ve earned it.

Congratulations to captain Fiona Coghlan, to coach Philip Doyle, to all the players and to everyone involved on a magnificent achievement.