LONG READ: Husband and wife to represent Tipperary at inaugural tag rugby tourney
Clonmel’s Rachael Joy and Brisbane beau Adric Mason will play at UCD Campus later this month
When Manchester City striker and Netherlands international Vivianne Miedema came face-to-face with her Lioness partner Beth Mead at Euro 2025 in Zurich last month, the Dutch forward insisted the pair ‘won’t be friends’ while they shared the same pitch.
After the match, many remarked on what a rarity it is to see a couple share the stage in a sporting capacity.
Cue Clonmel native Rachael Joy and her Aussie husband Adric Mason who make up two of Tipperary’s 19-person squad as they prepare for the inaugural Tag Rugby County Championships 2025 in Dublin next week.
This landmark event will bring together 15 teams from across Ireland, each proudly representing their county of origin or the county they feel the strongest connection to.
The Championships take place on Saturday, August 9, at UCD Sports Campus, Dublin, with an eight-hour festival of rugby expected to take place.
Ahead of the Championships, Tipperary duo Rachael and Adric spoke to the Tipperary Star about competing on the same team, Tipperary’s chances at becoming the tournament’s first ever champions, and how tag rugby brought the couple together.
“We actually met playing tag rugby over in London,” Rachael began.
“We were both living there about 10 years ago. We were playing on opposing teams and became good friends and then obviously things just went from there after a couple of years and then we moved back to Dublin together about five years ago.
Adric is from Brisbane originally, so he wasn’t quite keen to come back to Tipperary with me straight away as it’s a bit smaller than he’s used to. We’ve got him from London to Dublin, so the next step is getting him to Clonmel!”
“Then when I moved to London I was looking for a more social sport to meet people and chanced a non-contact rugby tournament, loved it, and basically went from there.
“I represented Ireland at the Tag World Cup which was held in Limerick a couple of years ago. I’ve really taken to the sport and enjoy the fact that it’s less dangerous than the full contact version.”
Adric also discovered his love of rugby while studying at school.
“My high school was actually on the Gold Coast, and it was quite a big rugby league school,” he said.
“So rugby league is probably more my sort of background and it was quite competitive in those school days. Then when I stopped playing that, I decidied to graduate to a less contact version and started playing Oztag is Australia.
The Tag Rugby County Championships is the brainchild of Jack Leahy, Irish Tag Rugby Association General Manager. Jack previously coached Rachael which is how the married couple received their county call-up earlier this year.
“We’d know the organisers quite well, and Jack was actually my coach when I was involved in the Ireland set-up. He knows I’m a very proud Tipp woman, and I had said to him at a couple of training sessions down in Tipperary that I’d love the opportunity to play for my county.
“So, when ITRA decided to run the tournament he was very quick to let me know that it was happening and I was very quick to put my hand up and be on the team and help out.”
With Rachael previously playing as a centre and a flanker, her natural home in a tag rugby side is a more of a playmaker role in the middle of the pitch, while Adric’s rapid speed and agility sees him out wide on the wing.
However just because the pair don’t operate in the same area of the pitch, doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some run-ins during the course of a match.
“We’ve played on the same side a few times. But Adric is actually a referee part-time too, and he’s reffed me before and we find that a lot more challenging than we do playing together. He’s probably the only person in the history of the sport who has given someone a penalty for rolling their eyes, and that was me towards him, unfortunately! He’s not afraid to blow the whistle if I’m acting up on the pitch.”
The Tag Rugby County Championships will consist of shorter matches, something onto the rugby sevens format seen last year at the Paris Olympics.
Play will begin at UCD Campus in Dublin from 10am, with the final not expected to be played before 5pm that afternoon.
Rachael says shorter games leads with smaller points tallies, which leads to a more open and compeitive tournament across the course of a day.
“The 15 or 20 minute matches are good generally because they can kind of go anyone’s way in such a short time frame compared to a normal game which would be about 40 minutes.
“It’ll likely end up being three group games and then three knockouts, so all going well you could be looking at six games maybe in the day, so the legs will be a bit heavy after all is said and done.”
When asked about Tipperary’s chances of winning the first edition of this tournament, Rachael insisted that the variation in quality from county to county will really only show on the day, as this is the first inter-county tag rugby tournament of its kind in Ireland’s history.
“It’ll probably be a situation where we find out on the day where every team is it. I’d predict it to be slightly below the representative levels of tag, your regional, national, and international teams etc. It’ll be more mixed on the day, which is exciting because it’s a bit of unknown what’s in front of you every time you step out.”