“A call on the IRFU to convene an emergency meeting to reverse its decision to axe the men's Rugby 7’s programme”
Following on from my Broken Play article this morning, I have received this open letter and was encouraged to share. Signatories are listed in bold at the end.
In the meantime, we ask the IRFU to:
Publish its ‘comprehensive review’
Highlight the ‘net costs’ of running the 7’s programme are
Describe what alternative sources of finance, if any, were sought to fill any gap.
==============
The IRFU’s decision to axe the men's rugby 7’s programme - after nearly ten years in which they came from the bottom divisions to the top; onto the HSBC World Series, were bronze medalists at World Cup in Cape Town in 2022, were second in the HSBC 7’s Series in 2023/24, qualified for two Olympics (Tokyo and Paris) - did not come after the review highlighted in an IRFU press release on Wednesday last, which read as follows;
“The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) today confirmed that following a comprehensive review of its Sevens programmes after the conclusion of the 2024 Olympic cycle, it has made the decision to cease the Men’s Sevens programme following the conclusion of the 2024/25 season.” (Wed 14th May 2025)
For those of us close to the Sevens programme we were asking, particularly at the end of last season, asking the lads, asking the sponsors and asking our contacts in the IRFU, “What's happening with the 7’s programme”? “Oh, we're conducting a review”. David Nucifora, the previous director of performance, had just left the car park and the 7’s were up for review!
What were they reviewing? The success of the 7’s programme, the fact that they came from nowhere in such a short time? Were they thinking, you know, the 7’s game has fewer injuries and concussions, is much easier for kids to get into and is clearly very popular, being one of the most watched sports events at the Olympics (530,000 spectators), and the lads have shown that Ireland can really compete. Perhaps we should start taking this more seriously, even pay the players a proper professional wage?
Presumably, such a “comprehensive review” would involve talking to the players, the 7’s coach and staff, and other stakeholders like Sports Ireland, the Olympic Council, and the team’s sponsors, Tritonlake?
You’d want to speak to the players, to Harry McNulty, Billy Dardis, Mark Roche, Greg O’Shea, fellows who’d been with the programme from the start and others like Jordan Conroy, Bryan Mollen, Jack Kelly, Gavin Mullin, Niall Comerford, Hugo Lennox, Aaron O’Sullivan, who'd been with the squad through one or two Olympic Cycles? And the current crop of players, including Matt McDonald, Tadhg Brophy, Dylan O’Grady, Daniel Hawkshaw, Indigo Cruise O’Brien, Edward Kelly, Josh Kenny…?
No. The reviewers didn’t speak to the players. What about the coach and the IRFU staff? Surely they spoke to the coach and their own IRFU staff! No, not the staff either. What about the Olympic Council? After all, 7’s is now an official Olympic game, and the IRFU receives funding from Sport Ireland? No. Didn’t speak to them either. Well then, they definitely spoke to their sponsors, Tritonlake? Surely, no, didn't speak to the sponsors.
Well, what sort of a review was it then? More of a ‘desktop financial review’ conducted off-the-field, somewhere in the background, rather than any comprehensive front-of-house detailed review?
Here’s another impression; the ‘reviewers’ weren’t reviewing the 7’s programme at all; they’d already made up their minds and had moved onto ‘So how can we close this thing down’? The old guard was reasserting itself. They had never loved the sevens, anyway, “We're a 15s nation” don’t you know! This was not a review; it was a post-mortem justification!
The genesis of the decision to axe the programme began before the lads had even left for the Olympics in Paris last summer. How? By not offering viable contracts to two of the most experienced players, the captain, Harry McNulty and Terry Kennedy, the sevens World Player of the Year (2023). There was no budget, the lads were told. The lads were retiring anyway, the narrative went.
The truth was that they had to leave after years in the programme to find some way of making a grown-up living. Also, if they were really retiring, why are they both lining out for a professional 7’s tournament in India in June?
A total of eight players left after the Olympics, and that really ripped the heart out of the team - four of whom going back to play 15s for their provinces - but of course, 7’s makes no contribution to the 15s or so the story goes? The IRFU knew these eight players were 2 leaving in advance and so you’d think that they’d have been busy recruiting the next crop of players for the new season? No.
By the time pre-season training had started, the squad was about 70% full and by the time the season had begun in Dubai, everyone who was fit to play was selected to play. In other words, no competition in the squad for places, no intensity in the preparation and not surprisingly, the team was not very competitive.
Then the 7’s staff started to leave and were not replaced. Did they suspect that something was up? Had the IRFU begun, as we all suspected, a managed decline of the programme, even if they had yet to articulate that to themselves? No, “We’re conducting a review”.
At the end of the first tournament in Dubai, Ireland were in 11th place. From 2nd to 11th place in just 6 months? In the second tournament in Cape Town, Ireland were again in 11th place. By the end of the season, they had fallen out of the first tier altogether, it was that quick.
Was that not just post-Olympic fallout, the inevitable changeover that occurs after an Olympic cycle? If it was, it hadn’t affected New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, France, Fiji and Argentina, all of whom had remained competitive.
The IRFU is a not-for-profit organisation with a remit to grow the sport in Ireland and internationally. We also see ourselves as a ‘premier first-tier Rugby nation’, up there with the best and we take our responsibilities seriously. The inclusion of the rugby sevens in the Olympics - the biggest sporting event in the World - has, by all accounts, elevated the sport's profile and attraction to new players around the world. So how is this decision by the IRFU then in line with that mandate?
And the reason for cutting the 7’s programme? Cost! It was losing money. According to reliable sources, the normalised costs (non-Olympic year) costs are €1.35m pa, less €900k of contributions from sponsors, World Rugby and Sport Ireland. So by this calculation, the net cost is €450k, which is less than the IRFU spends on travel and entertainment for their committees.
Also, if the deficit of €450k was ‘the problem’, did the IRFU seek additional sponsorship, public or private, as happens with the provinces, and which is likely to be available?
The reality is that almost everyone in Irish rugby loses money. If losing money was the issue, then we’d be axing Munster (losing money/breaking even), Connacht (losing 3 money), Ulster (losing money) and women’s rugby (losing heaps of money). Also, the All Ireland League (AIL), loses money and even Leinster, one of the great teams in the rugby world, would be struggling if it were not for their central IRFU contracts.
How does Irish rugby make its money, then? Two main sources: The Six Nations, where the same six teams play each other each year, and the Autumn Internationals, where the same Southern Hemisphere teams come up to play in the Northern Hemisphere every other year. The funds then come into a central point and are redistributed to the loss-making divisions, whether they are performing or not.
Assuming the above valuations are correct, the IRFU is going to shut down a national Olympic sports programme with a realistic shot at a team medal in the future, make 20 of its players and a number of its staff effectively redundant, while shirking its responsibilities as a first-tier Rugby nation to promote the game for what it costs for its committees to go on tour!
Interestingly, the loss-making women’s 7’s programme survived this “comprehensive review” How was that? Because the 7’s women contribute to the women's 15s whereas, the narrative goes, the men's 7s does not? We already know that is just not the case. Does it have more to do with resistance from the provincial academies not wanting to release their players, thereby denying them the opportunity to play for their country?
And, can the IRFU actually axe our participation in an Olympic Sport without conferring with the Olympic Council? The 7’s is one of Ireland’s only realistic Olympic team medal hopefuls and therefore owned in part by its people. Also, did the IRFU talk to the Government? I wonder if the IRFU said they were reducing their investment in Women's Rugby by €1-2 million, whether that would cause more of a stir?
The job of the senior people in the IRFU is to find ways to make the various programmes work, not to cut them, i.e., to take successful programmes like the men’s 7’s and make them better, not run them down and to find ways to make the 7’s work alongside other parts of the sport, as they do in other leading first-tier rugby nations. Is the axing of the 7’s programme an acknowledgement that those senior executives have failed in their roles?
Perhaps it's the governance in the IRFU that needs to be up for review and not the success of the men's rugby programme, their staff and their many supporters who are rightly feeling aggrieved.
As parents and long-time supporters of the Ireland sevens and Irish Rugby in general, we, the undersigned, call on the IRFU to convene an emergency board meeting to reverse this ill-thought-out decision.
Signed : Edward Kelly, Joyce Mac Redmond, Terry Kennedy, Rosie Kennedy, David Roche, Joanne Fox, Fiona Reid, Philip Comerford, Joyce Comerford, Sandra McNulty, Aido McNulty, Mary Lennox, Barry O’Sullivan, Stephanie O’Boyle, Bernard Smith, Dan O’Grady, Emer Crowley, Patrick O’Brien, Frank Mollen, Mo Mollen, Liz and Sean Fitzpatrick, Mary Carroll, Donal Leavy, Sarah Hogan, Barbara Kirwan Daris, Colm Dardis
P.S. This is not just about our lads and respect for the efforts they put in, or for the lads who went before them, it's also about maintaining the opportunity for a new generation of players to play for their country and potentially participate in the Olympics. If you think about how long it takes to get a 7’s programme up and running and ‘competitive’ and then to actually get into the Olympics, you’d think more than twice about axing it because other parts of the organisation is haemorrhaging money. It doesn’t make any sense to be scapegoating something that is working.