Fryday feeling no regrets after Ireland call

Nichola Fryday insists she has no regrets about calling time on her international career.

The former Ireland captain made a shock announcement in July that she was stepping down. When she did so she became the second skipper, after Ciara Griffin in 2021, to seemingly end her international career in her prime.

While Ireland, under then head coach Greg McWilliams struggled for results, Fryday was a standout for the team.

"From the beginning, when I come up to Ireland, it was always going to be something that was an amazing experience but for me I feel it has to come to an end at some stage," said the 28-year Offaly native as she was named Guinness Rugby Writers of Ireland player of the year.

"I do have career goals that I want to push on with now. Everything outside of rugby as well, all those years of not making weddings or birthdays or your family side of things.

"There comes a time when you want to put your focus back on those things and it may be a bit selfish because I am still quite early in my playing career but I feel for me like I have given everything that I could do to Ireland.

"Now it's about putting the focus back all the people that supported me throughout those years and giving everything to them that they gave to me.

"My career side of things, I do want to focus on as well. I am really starting to focus on myself for a few years."

Reflecting on her career, she said: "I think back to when I first started in Tullamore and it was just purely for the social element of it.

"I had gone to boarding school so I didn’t have such a strong connection within the community because you are spending so much of your week away that when you come home you don’t get to see people that you may know through school and stuff like that.

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