The Irish Rugby Soccer Union has confirmed history-maker Pleasure Neville will retire from refereeing on the finish of the season.
Neville refereed the Ladies’s Rugby World Cup ultimate in New Zealand in 2021 and made historical past when named by World Rugby to officiate as a TMO on the Males’s Rugby World Cup in France.
Previous to refereeing, Neville’s membership profession noticed her play for Shannon and UL Bohemians whereas she additionally represented her residence province Munster.
She gained 70 caps for Eire, captaining the workforce through the 2009 Ladies’s Six Nations Championship, main the Eire ladies to their inaugural win over France. She additionally gained a Ladies’s Six Nations Grand Slam in 2013 and featured in two Ladies’s Rugby World Cups, in 2006 and 2010.
On her determination to retire, Neville stated: “Once I first took up the whistle after my enjoying profession concluded, I may by no means have imagined the locations the sport would take me.
“To be concerned in, firstly, the Ladies’s Rugby World Cup ultimate was an enormous honour and to then progress via to the Males’s Rugby World Cup made me extremely proud and it is solely once I look again now that I can really admire these achievements.
“To all those that have helped foster my love of the sport up to now, particularly all my household, buddies and mentors in and outdoors the sport, thanks on your help.
“Although tinged with sadness as one hugely fulfilling chapter closes in my career, I am delighted that I can continue my career in Irish rugby with such an ambitious group in Connacht.
“I am grateful for this chance and excited to assist develop the subsequent crop of match officers throughout the province within the new 12 months.”
IRFU Head of Referees Dudley Phillips added: “Joy has been an incredible servant to Irish rugby and she can look back on her refereeing career with great pride.
“As any person who continues to blaze a path for younger women and men, I’m delighted that she is going to proceed to encourage the subsequent technology of match officers in Connacht.”
Following her retirement, Neville will take up a role as the new Referee Development Manager in Connacht, working with “key provincial personnel to recruit, educate and retain referees to supply for the wants of the sport, in addition to to develop referees from Trainee Referee to Nationwide Panel”.