Irish Olympics Sevens, under-age Cambridge soccer star, former Dubs minor All Ireland finalist and now Ireland rugby full-back Stacey Flood has hailed the rise and rise of women's sport in Ireland.And, ahead of taking on the best pound-for-pound rugby team in the world, England, in Cork on Saturday has pointed out that Ireland women's sport has never had it so good."I think there's a lot of names that stand out to me and I think we're hearing them more and more in Irish sports, which is really good."It's not just you have your Johnny Sextons or your Sam Prendergasts, you've actually have your Beibhinn Parsons, your Aime-Leigh Costigans and you have that in other sports, like Abby Larkin, Katie McCabe, Rashidat Adeleke, Leona Maguire... "You have people who are household names who young girls are looking up to and I think the more and more support and coverage that women's sport will get, the more that it will have a snowball effect down the road because those young girls are leaps and bounds ahead of when I first started."Flood, 28, has essentially been a full-time athlete since her Leaving Cert, she is part of a first generation of Irish women able to follow that dream at home."The person I looked up to, or was my household name, was my older sister Kim (Dublin All-Ireland winner, Rugby XVs and Sevens international, League of Ireland soccer player) and I'm so lucky for that."If anyone knows Carla Rowe, she was, she was my under 16 and under 18 captain and look where she is now. From such a young age she was captain and she's still the captain and I think that's something that it's obviously in her."She performs each time, she scores in finals, she gets player of the matches from the way she plays in the matches, that's something. Maybe she's not a household name to everyone but I know that anyone who watches the Dublin women's team, or even the Dublin team, knows who she is."I think there is household names there, maybe they're not in every household but they are more predominant than they were before because young girls now have multiple people to look up to and I think that's such a special thing and the more we grow women's sport in Ireland as sport, it's not men or women's sport, it's just sport in general."You can really make a difference and I think that it's so good."Sports such as rugby are coming along at pace as youngsters have been able to find an opportunity to start at a far younger age than in the past."We've girls coming into the Ireland team who started playing rugby when they're five, six years old - I started playing rugby when I was 16/17 years old."They're already 10 years ahead of me when they're first coming into a programme like this and I think, yes, you will have players as good (England stars/icons) Ellie Kildunne's and your Meg Jones."But I think in Ireland, it's so special to see Irish women's sports people and the more we can just get hold of that and put names out there and see more of it, it is just gonna snowball effect and it's gonna make Irish women's sports even more competitive and highly rated than it is already."Flood will be earning 17th Ireland cap when she starts against England and for a team that has made three changes from that which defeated Italy last time out, Emily Lane, Dorothy Wall and Brittany Hogan coming in at scrum-half, second-row and no6 respectively.Ireland (v England, Virgin Media Park, Cork, 4.45pm, Saturday, RTÉ2 and BBC Two, live radio coverage on RTÉ)Ireland: Stacey Flood; Anna McGann, Aoife Dalton, Eve Higgins, Amee-Leigh Costigan capt; Dannah O'Brien, Emily Lane; Niamh O'Dowd, Neve Jones, Linda Djougang, Fiona Tuite, Dorothy Wall, Brittany Hogan, Erin King, Aoife Wafer Replacements: Cliodhna Moloney, Siobhán McCarthy, Christy Haney, Ruth Campbell, Grace Moore, Aoibheann Reilly, Nicole Fowley, Vicky Elmes Kinlan England: Kildunne; Dow, Jones, Heard, Breach; Harrison, Hunt; Botterman, Atkin-Davies, Muir, Talling, Ward, Aldcroft (capt), Kabeya, Matthews. Replacements: Cokayne, Clifford, Bern, Galligan, Feaunati, L Packer, Aitchison, Rowland. The Irish Mirror has a rugby WhatsApp group where you can get breaking news and top stories straight to your phone. Click here to join. You can leave our group at any time if you don't like it.