Dalton focusing on ‘winnable’ home matches

Ireland’s two try scorers arrived in the mixed zone of the Stade Marie-Marvingt on Saturday evening as walking proof of the positives from the opening game of the Women’s Six Nations. Aoife Wafer and Aoife Dalton will always remember Le Mans as the place they scored their first championship tries in the 38-17 defeat to France.

We don’t want to get into Johnny Sexton ‘We lost but we won’ territory, but there are aspects of Ireland’s game that have undergone a big makeover since last year. That includes scoring two tries against France.

What a difference a year can make. Twelve months ago, Ireland were soundly beaten by a Wales side that produced four unanswered first-half tries to lead 26-0 at the break on their way to a 31-5 win at Cardiff Arms Park.

On Saturday, Dalton, who was part of that Ireland team that lost to Wales a year ago, showed her alertness and doggedness to capitalise on a mistake by France’s Lina Tuy to score a try three minutes from time.

What shocked the 11-times capped Dalton, who turns 21 in May, was something else. Ireland’s defence – under new assistant coach Declan Danaher – was a big calling card of this team’s performance in Le Mans.

Forexample,lastyearIrelandmissed 43 tackles against France. On Saturday, it was 17. It was the grunt they brought to the fight that amazed the Clara centre.

“Compared to last year, our physicality has gone through the roof, it’s something we pride ourselves on,” said Dalton. “We even shocked ourselves with how physical we could be and then our scramble ‘D’ worked really well at times.

“I don’t think they ever got around us, which is something we can pride ourselves on. Dec has developed a love for defending because the reality for this game, especially, was that we would have been defending for the majority of it.”

For Josh van der Flier’s visibility with a red scrumcap, read Wafer for the women. The Wexford back-rower says wearing it has its pluses and minuses, but it undoubtedly was a major plus to spot her red scrum-cap burrowing over for Ireland’s first try in the 70th minute.

It was her first international try on the occasion of her first start in her third game for Ireland.

The team now have grit and unity as part of their identity. After the game, they all got into a circle. What was said?

“We were saying, ‘This is the line, that we’re not going to back down, that we’re going to keep fighting’. We’ve Italy at home on Sunday and we’re going to bring it to them. We’re going to go up another level,” said Wafer, who turns 21 today. “Our mantra is togetherness, that’s what we worked for.”

Sure, Ireland have a lot they need to improve. For instance, their lineout (theylostfourinthefirsthalf).Theirattack. Playing the game on their terms. And there’s more to come from the defence, according to the head coach.

“Defensively, I think we can still put more pressure on teams; [we] probably gave them a bit too much respect to start with. We were probably defending in the wrong areas of the pitch that we want to be defending in,” Scott Bemand acknowledged.

Pressure

“There’s a kicking piece that we’re going to keep going after and what kicking pressure looks like. 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 that we fancy ourselves more often than not to be winning, which lets you build your pressure up the pitch.”

Co-captain Edel Mahon believes that opening display at the Stade Marie-Marvingt on Saturday will give the team “a lot of confidence knowing that we’re heading in the right direction”.

Next up, it’s a home game at the RDS against Italy on Sunday. Ireland haven’t won a Women’s Six Nations game in 23 months. That needs to be remedied as soon as possible.

“We’re definitely targeting all three home games as winnable games and, yeah, we can’t wait to play in the RDS,” admitted Dalton. “We’ll be super excited to have everyone come see us and come on our journey with us.”

This Ireland squad spent last year firefighting in the Women’s Six Nations. This year they want to fire some shots. The early signs are encouraging.