\n<\/p>\n
Erin King will make her first international appearance in a year as she captains Ireland in Saturday’s Six Nations opener in England. <\/b><\/p>\n
King missed the World Cup last year after she sustained a knee injury in the defeat by the Red Roses in the 2025 Six Nations. <\/p>\n
The 22-year-old has been named Ireland’s captain for the 2026 edition and will start at flanker against an England side who are looking to win an eighth Six Nations in a row.<\/p>\n
She is joined in the back row by Brittany Hogan and Aoife Wafer, who was the Six Nations player of the championship in 2025 but had an injury-hit year. <\/p>\n
Head coach Scott Bemand has named two potential debutants on the bench in the form of prop Eil\u00eds Cahill and scrum-half Katie Whelan.<\/p>\n
Former England prop Ellena Perry will make her first Six Nations appearance for Ireland after switching allegiances ahead of the Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n
Hooker Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald will make her 50th Test appearance for Ireland alongside Perry and Linda Djougang, while Dorothy Wall and Fiona Tuite will line out in the second row.<\/p>\n
Emily Lane and Dannah O’Brien will form the half-back partnership, with Eve Higgins and Aoife Dalton a familiar centre pairing. <\/p>\n
Vicky Elmes Kinlan has got the nod to start on the left wing, while Beibhinn Parsons and Stacey Flood complete the back three. <\/p>\n
Ireland: <\/b>Stacey Flood; Beibhinn Parsons; Aoife Dalton, Eve Higgins; Vicky Elmes Kinlan; Dannah O’Brien, Emily Lane; Ellena Perry, Cliodhna Moloney-Macdonald, Linda Djougang; Dorothy Wall, Fiona Tuite; Brittany Hogan, Erin King (capt), Aoife Wafer.<\/p>\n
Replacements:<\/i> Neve Jones, Niamh O’Dowd, Eilis Cahill, Ruth Campbell, Grace Moore, Katie Whelan, Nancy McGillivray, Anna McGann.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Erin King will make her first international appearance in a year as she captains Ireland in Saturday’s Six Nations opener in England. King missed the World Cup last year after she sustained a knee injury in the defeat by the Red Roses in the 2025 Six Nations. The 22-year-old has been named Ireland’s captain for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}