Irish girls eager to finish on a high note, says Tyrrell
THERE have been plenty of positives to take from Ireland Women’s Six Nations campaign, but a lot of that good work could potentially be undone by finishing with two defeats.
Having paid the price for a really poor performance against Scotland last week, the challenge doesn’t get any easier against an England side who have their sights set on winning the title.
Ireland will be out to spoil the party this evening (5.30pm) but they will need a huge collective improvement if they are to have any hope of doing so.
Nicole Cronin makes her first start of the tournament at scrum-half, while Louise Galvin is also promoted from the bench, which sees Hannah Tyrrell switch to full-back.
Tyrrell said: “We were quite disappointed with our performance last weekend against Scotland so we are really looking to finish on a high.
“We’re still quite a young team trying to gel together under new management. We were really poorly disciplined (against Scotland), we gave away a lot of penalties. Our execution wasn’t the best the last day.
“England are always a tough side to beat. We don’t need to get riled up for England, we know what’s at stake here. We want to put in a good performance and come away with a win.”
Ireland showed what they are capable of when they clicked against Wales, and they will need to hit similar heights.
Sene Naoupu and Katie Fitzhenry have formed a decent midfield partnership and will be a threat.
Niamh Briggs will need to control the tempo from the start and put her side in good positions.
England, who were beaten in last year’s World Cup final by New Zealand, will target Ireland up front but, if the pack can lay the platform, they have the firepower to strike out wide.
Ireland head coach Adam Griggs insisted: “We’re looking for a big reaction.
“We’ve shown before against England, even though we are underdogs, we can be fairly hardedged and we can be hard to put away. That’s what we expect.” IRELAND: H Tyrrell; M Williams, K Fitzhenry, S Naoupu, L Galvin; N Briggs, N Cronin; L Peat, C Moloney, L Lyons; A McDermott, P Fitzpatrick; A Baxter, C Molloy, C Griffin (capt).
Reps: C O’Connor, L Feely, F Reidy, C Cooney, A Caplice, A Hughes, M Claffey, K Flood.