Lynne Cantwell, Irish Rugby’s head of women’s strategy, believes the possibility of teams from Ireland forming part of a future British and Irish League represents “a massive opportunity”.

Premiership Women’s Rugby [PWR], currently restricted to English clubs, opened an expression of interest process in April for organisations who might join the nine-team competition if it expanded, with the Irish Rugby Football Union confirming at the time that they had shown interest in joining.

A decision about whether the Irish Rugby Football Union [IRFU], and its Scottish and Welsh counterparts, have been successful in a bid to join PWR is expected within the next three to four months.

Cantwell told Irish broadcaster RTE that the prospect of a potential merger between PWR and the Celtic Challenge, presently contested by Irish, Scottish and Welsh sides, is an exciting one.

“I think the opportunity is incredibly massive, when we look at the elite competition that we want our national players and emerging players to be part of,” she said.

“We’re on that journey. The opportunity to play in a cross-border competition with the Red Roses and the Scottish players and Welsh players is really significant, so it’s one we are very focused on exploring.

“It’s the best elite domestic league in the world at the moment. What we are seeing is a lot of international players to play in the English league because of that.”

The IRFU have made a combined bid with the Welsh and Scottish unions, with a potential merger understood to be possible by the 2028-29 season at the earliest.

Cantwell explained that a substantial amount of information was shared in support of the proposal.

“We had to submit a huge big data dump, which took a considerable amount of time, that explored strategy, to commercials, to performance plan, to stadium access and accessibility and so on.

“We met with them, they interviewed everybody, or met with everybody to check and challenge the information, and that’s all we have at the moment.

“So we’re waiting to hear from them. What they have said is that because they’re PWR, they’re an entity who are run by shareholders, which is all the PWR clubs and the RFU as a stakeholder.

“Obviously it’s a competition that’s run in England as the RFU, and therefore the governance and sign-off behind any change takes a couple of layers and therefore we’re not going to know it for another kind of three or four months, that’s what they’ve said,” she added.

Munster, Connacht, Leinster and Ulster currently play in an Interpro league in the early part of the season.

The Celtic Challenge has been running since 2023, with Irish sides Wolfhounds and Clovers largely dominating the competition, the former having won the tournament three years in a row.

The squads for the two Irish teams are selected from a pool of players based in Ireland.

A significant number of Ireland players ply their trade in the PWR, including Harlequins captain and double Women’s Six Nations player-of-the-tournament Aoife Wafer.

Others include Sale Sharks back row Brittany Hogan, Exeter Chiefs forwards Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald and Dorothy Wall and Gloucester Hartpury players Sam Monaghan, Niamh O’Dowd and Neve Jones.

“The opportunity with Ireland so close to England, and the opportunity to be part of that league is exceptional, and therefore we are very focused on exploring it.

“I think what that means for a player is that she is in a great daily environment, getting great access to training, medical and all those things that she needs to put on a weekly basis, and she is playing a really intense competition, and where you are feeling into that principle of iron sharpens iron, which makes everyone better,” added Cantwell.