Third-place permutations won’t change our approach – McKee

Ireland senior coach John McKee says it could be “detrimental” to the team’s performance if their game-plan against Scotland in Ravenhill is shaped by the outcome of Italy’s with Wales on the final day of the Women’s Six Nations tomorrow.

Permutations could play a big part in the final round, with Scotland, Italy and Ireland in the hunt to finish third – which will secure automatic qualification for next year’s Rugby World Cup.

Scotland are in pole position in third, two points ahead of fourth-place Italy and fifth-place Ireland (Italy lead Ireland on points difference). The Azzurre’s game with Wales in Cardiff kicks off at 12.15pm tomorrow and is followed by Ireland against Scotland at 2.30pm. A big win by Italy would have a knock-on effect on what Ireland would need against Scotland if they’re to finish third.

“Obviously we’ll know exactly what the table looks like going into what will be our last game and our approach to the game and how we want to play the game won’t change,” said McKee (inset).

“Our preparation is about our performance against Scotland, that’s what we can control. And really trying to take another approach could be detrimental to our performance.

“We’ve talked about things during the week, we know where we’re heading, we know what’s required and what’s important for us now is to be able to produce that performance on the day.”

Ireland are boosted by the return of co-captain Sam Monaghan, who missed the 88-10 defeat to England last Saturday. There are two other changes in the team – Méabh Deely will make her first start of the championship at full-back with Lauren Delany dropped from the match-day squad. Enya Breen replaces Aoife Dalton in the centre for a game that is set to surpass the attendance record for a Women’s Six Nations match on Irish soil with 6,600 tickets already sold.

If Ireland fail to finish third in the table, the WXV competition will offer another opportunity to qualify later this year.

“It’s huge but that was our goal coming into the campaign, third place, so we can directly qualify. If we have to go a different route, we have to go a different route,” said Ireland back-rower Brittany Hogan. “We’re not putting that pressure on ourselves for the weekend. It’s just looking to go and perform against Scotland. If it happens, it would be great, it would mean loads.”

After their bonus-point win over Wales, Ireland are targeting a second win in the championship for the first time in two years. Hogan says the group have kept positive after last weekend’s lesson by England.

“I suppose if you just look at the negatives of a game, you wouldn’t be playing it, to be honest. We all play because we love the green jersey and we all play because we love rugby. We have to make sure that we take the positives out of every game and if you didn’t have them, then it just wouldn’t be a nice place to be.”