TACKLING THE ISSUES
A whopping 175 tackles against France helps show why Ireland will be a lot harder to beat this season
THERE will be some sore bodies reporting for duty at the high performance centre in Abbotstown this morning after Ireland’s bruising 38-17 Six Nations loss to France in Le Mans on Saturday.
The result was expected; a much-improved performance from the visitors was a pleasant surprise. Restricting a powerful French outfit to just five tries was testament to the defensive effort of Scott Bemand’s side.
Ireland were forced to make a whopping 175 tackles as the hosts attacked in waves for the duration.
It was yet another loss for the long suffering national team but there was plenty in this performance to suggest they are turning a corner.
Next up is Italy at the RDS on Sunday and Bemand believes there is plenty of scope for improvement in his squad.
‘I think defensively, you want to be hard to beat, and that’s anywhere on the pitch. I think there are probably a few areas in the game that we’ll go after but France, as Edel (McMahon) said, are a World Cup-contending side,’ the Ireland head coach remarked.
‘So, basically I think we can still put more pressure on teams. We probably gave them a little too much respect to start with which meant we were probably defending in the wrong areas of the pitch that we want to be defending in.
‘There’s a kicking piece that we’re going to keep going after and what kicking pressure looks like. I think our attack game, once we got into the right areas of the pitch, there’s a little bit of fine tuning there.
‘There’s lineouts really that we fancy ourselves more often than not to be winning, which lets you then build your pressure up the pitch, and maybe just left France off the hook a little bit there.
‘There’ll be a couple of fix-ups around the breakdown as well but we knew coming into this competition that we would have to keep learning and growing on the move.
‘So, coming away to France is always a big ask but it gives us an opportunity now to look into it in a bit of detail which lets us attack an Italy side next week.’
The Italians were a class apart in the corresponding fixture last season, the home side securing a 24-7 win at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi. But this Irish side will fancy their chances of landing a first win in the championship since 2022.
Bemand, however, is expecting a fierce challenge this weekend.
‘The Italians bring their own brand which I think actually is a reasonable brand. Plenty goes on when you play the Italians.
‘They’re reasonably good at keeping the ball. They’re going to give you some interesting kicks, little kicks off Beatrice (Rigoni), little pushes in behind, little chip overs.
‘So, they’ll be a good team. They’ve had a little bit of a rewrite themselves — obviously a newish coaching staff, but they’re a year in, so perhaps they’re slightly more embedded into their playing philosophy than us but we’re looking forward to welcoming them. We know that we’ve got a game that can give them plenty of problems.
‘So, we’re looking to fire more shots next week.’
Ireland’s attacking game is one area which has plenty of room to improve. A kick-focused strategy reaped dividends against the French but Béibhínn Parsons and Eve Higgins — two returning Sevens stars — saw little ball at Stade Marie-Marvingt.
With a big crowd expected to descend on Leinster HQ later this week, Bemand is hoping to see more ball in the wide channels.
‘I actually thought Béibh had a couple of interesting moments today,’ he added. ‘Would we like to see the ball in Beibh’s hands more often? Absolutely.
‘It’s part of what we want to become. We want people to see a brand that is interesting, that is multi-dimensional and that involves our wingers getting on the ball.
‘We’ll look at that. Good old Irish weather over in France, a bit of rain came down and a hard defence to play against with the French.
‘We’d probably like to see the ball in their hands on our terms more. Katie Corrigan in her last three games (in the Celtic Challenge competition) is scoring a lot of tries and within our training, which is pretty competitive, she is scoring tries.
‘It’d be nice to see the ball in wingers’ hands, it’d be nice to see them on the front-foot and see what they can do.’
Meanwhile, Ireland captain McMahon feels the gritty display in France will stand to this squad for the rest of the championship.
In a major boost for this squad, talismanic lock Sam Monaghan is set to come back into the selection equation after she sat out the France game with a head injury.
And McMahon feels this squad have taken a big step forward.
‘It’s a big confidence booster for us,’ said the Exeter Chiefs flanker after Saturday’s heartening performance.
‘This was our first real test since (the WXV3 tournament in) Dubai to have a crack at World Cup -contending squads and we showed that we can contend with them.
‘To fine-tune some of our setpiece and our exits and our kick strategy is something we’ll go after, but it gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we’re heading in the right direction.’
McMahon is relishing Ireland’s first home game of the season, with a big crowd expected at the RDS on Sunday.
‘I think the support from home has already spoken volumes.
‘Obviously we have a lot of family that travelled today and I believe some oldies from the past that played rugby for Ireland came along as well. So, having supporters like that is massive, people who played the game are back on that journey with us.
‘We had a massive amount of messages from home. I think we had quite a lot of support, especially coming here to France, so I really can’t wait to see the support when they come out in the RDS for us against Italy next week.’
“Our game can give Italy plenty of problems” “We’re confident that we’re going the right direction”