Irish rugby: The international rugby 'trailblazer' and her legacy of cancer awareness

They gathered to remember "a girl like no other" - a trailblazing rugby player whose exploits on the pitch were cruelly cut short by her death at just 33.

Last Saturday, on a sunny September afternoon two teams from two different corners of Northern Ireland came to City of Derry to contest the Rosie Stewart Memorial Bowl.

Stewart, from Londonderry, won four caps for Ireland between 1999 and 2000 and was a founding member of Ulster Women's Rugby but, in 2003, she died after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

The memorial match is held every year in her memory and also to promote female health, a cause her sister Colette Risely said would have been close to Stewart's heart.

"I think the more we do the talking, the more lives we will save," she said.

"Rosie would be the one to promote the awareness too if she could."

On Saturday, Stewart's former club Cooke, which contest the memorial match every year, took on Enniskillen in Stewart's home city, watched on by the likes of Collette, her father John Gallagher and husband Adrian, who said his wife was a "girl like no other".

But what was going on off the pitch was just as important, with a women's health discussion held before the match hosted by the Western Trust's Jacinta McCool and fitness coach Claire O'Hagan.

O'Hagan's spoke on female strength and conditioning and the impact of the menstrual cycle on athletic performance, while McCool focused on breast and cervical cancer awareness.

It was a "poignant" event for City of Derry player Kelly Gormley, who said a number of squad members have been affected by or had breast cancer.

"It's at the forefront of our minds," she said. "I think when you are delivering information and awareness, it's information you're taking to 20 or 30 girls."

Jacinta McCool, whose message of early detection of breast or cervical cancer leads to better cure rates, said it was important to raise that awareness.

"Hopefully anybody that hears one thing, they go off and tell three or four of their friends, then we are reaching a much bigger audience."

For Gormley, Stewart was a "pioneering" player in her efforts to grow the women's game.

"Why not celebrate someone from Derry who started the movement in women's rugby?" she said.

"She started a change for women to play rugby and so we are just marking that at our own club."

Speaking about the increase of women playing rugby in Northern Ireland, Gormley said she thinks Stewart would not be surprised about the growth.

"She was knocking down doors before people even knew about women's rugby, these rugby teams are growing really fast and it is a result of decisions she made and took," she said.