Finn earns Irish Rugby Central Contract
Garrykennedy native Caitríona Finn is one of seven players to have been awarded their first national contracts with the IRFU following a series of impressive performances for Munster in the Vodafone Women’s Interprovincial Series over the summer.
By Thomas Conway
Finn, an emerging star for the past several years and a graduate of both Ballina/Killaloe and Nenagh Ormond rugby clubs, excelled for Munster as they secured back-to-back interprovincial titles in August.
The 19-year-old out-half has also represented Ireland at under-20s level and has proven herself as one of the country’s most exciting upcoming prospects.
Finn - who was recently named Munster’s breakthrough women’s player of the year and supporter’s player of the year for the 2024/25 season - is now part of a group of 35 players to have been granted a central contract with the IRFU for the 2025/25 season.
Some of those individuals have already begun training at the IRFU high performance centre in Blanchardstown, in preparation for a busy 2026 season.
The immediate focus for the players will be on the upcoming Celtic Challenge tournament, a cross-border competition featuring teams from Ireland, Scotland and Wales which was established in 2023. Two sides from each of the respective nations will compete across ten rounds, beginning on December 20th and culminating in a final in March. The two Irish teams, the Clovers and the Wolfhounds, will square off against one another twice during the round-robin phase, on January 3rd and March 3rd.
Following the culmination of that tournament, the next big event will be the Women’s Six Nations. Ireland finished third in last year’s competition, recording wins over Italy and Wales but suffering a chastening 49-5 defeat to Grand Slam champions England in Cork.
Ireland will begin their 2026 campaign away to England on April 11th. Following that will be a home game against Italy, before an away trip to France and a Saturday evening home clash against Wales. Ireland will end their campaign against Scotland, at home on May 17th.
Finn’s selection as a national contract recipient will come as little surprise to anyone who has witnessed her play in red or green over the past several years. She only made her Munster senior debut in 2024 but had nailed down a starting berth by the time the 2025 Interprovincial series came around. She would excel in that series, delivering several player-of-the-match performances and receiving high praise for her ability to control the game.
Her exploits for UL Bohs also helped the Limerick club to claim back-to-back AIL titles over the past two seasons, and she was chosen as part of the Ireland squad for the WXV series in autumn 2024, during which Ireland pulled off a sensational victory over New Zealand.
A newly structured WXV series, combined with the aforementioned Celtic Challenge and Six Nations tournaments, will afford Finn and the other new Irish recruits plenty of opportunities to impress in the year ahead. So far, Finn has brushed aside virtually every challenge put in front of her and she will almost certainly be eyeing a breakthrough at senior national level.
Ireland suffered a narrow quarter-final final defeat to France at last summer’s Rugby World Cup in England but were generally regarded to have performed well during the tournament.
The current out-half, Leinster’s Dannah O’Brien, is only 22 and has a long career ahead of her, but realistically it is her that Finn will have to unseat if the Garrykennedy woman wants a place at the top table.
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand may feel that she is that bit too young at present, but age has never been a barrier to Finn before. With a national contract secured, she will now be training day-in day-out with the best players in the country. She can only get better, and given her form to date, one gets the impression that we’ll be seeing in an Ireland senior jersey sooner rather than later.