The Left Wing is back for another season and Will Slattery and Luke Fitzgerald are joined for the first episode by Ruaidhrí O'Connor and former Ireland international Alison Miller.

The panel kick things off with a post-mortem of Ireland's failure to qualify for the Women's World Cup after a disastrous defeat to Scotland last weekend.

Alison says that change is needed at the top of the sport to ensure women's rugby in Ireland can get back on its feet.

The discussion then turns to the United Rugby Championship, which kicked off over the weekend. Will the arrival of four new South African teams provide a much-needed boost for the league?

Munster are the team that are most interesting heading into the new campaign, with question marks over the future of their coaching staff as well as the return of Simon Zebo to Thomond Park.

For more Left Wing episodes and rugby stories visit the show page at:
https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/the-left-wing/

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