Ireland Women appoint Lloyd Tennant as head coach

Cricket Ireland has appointed Lloyd Tennant as Ireland Women's head coach.

Tennant will begin his new role on June 1, replacing Ed Joyce, who announced in February that he would leave the role after nearly six years.

Joyce's final assignment was last month's ICC Women's World Cup Qualifier, where Ireland failed to secure a place at the global 50-over tournament in India later this year.

Tennant, 57, is an ECB Level 4 qualified coach and spent four years as head coach of Central Sparks, a regional team which folded after last season as women's domestic cricket in England and Wales moved to a county-based structure for 2025 and beyond.

Tennant has also worked as an assistant coach in the England Women's pathway and at Manchester Originals in the Women's Hundred. He spent two years as ECB women and girls' talent manager and has worked as a bowling coach for England Under-19s. Tennant spent more than 20 years working in the men's high performance pathway at Leicestershire, where he played professionally

"It's such a great time to be involved in women's cricket, given its rapid development around the world," Tennant said. "This Ireland Women's squad has moved forward enormously under the guidance of Ed Joyce, and I would like to continue his great work, supporting this squad as it continues to grow."

Graeme West, Cricket Ireland's director of high performance, said: "We believe Lloyd is the perfect fit for the current national squad that has an abundance of young talent. His additional experience with the ECB taking players through Under-19 World Cup cycles and national academy programmes has provided Lloyd with a thorough understanding of the challenges of managing and developing players who are balancing educational commitments with the demands of being an elite athlete."

Reflecting on his time in the role, Joyce said two things stood out to him.

"The first was when we went from a mainly amateur team to a far more professional set up both in terms of coaches and staffing as well as the playing squad," he told Cricket Ireland. "We currently have a good number of full-time players in there which is great, and we've been trying to push that on.

"The second thing is the change in the personnel in the squad. We've lost some big players over the last couple of years and replacing them has obviously been very tricky. But with the younger players who have come in, that hunger and the desire to play in this team has been really clear from the outset. They've made their mark in a massive way over the last 12 to 18 months - so that's been great to see. I'm really proud of the part that all the staff have played in that. It's the big reward for coaches to see players performing at the biggest stage and lots of players have done that."

Ireland Women will host Zimbabwe for three T20Is and two ODIs towards the end of July, followed by three T20Is at home against Pakistan in August.