Ireland head coach Scott Bemand praised his team’s second half performance as they scored twice to limit the damage to a 33-12 defeat to England in the opening round of the Women’s Six Nations.
Anna McGann and Erin King crossed as Ireland avoided being nilled on the scoreboard. England, in their first outing since being crowned World Cup winners, crossed five times in front of 77,120 at Twickenham.
It was the first time Ireland scored more than one try against England since 2013.
Leinster have yet to fully find their mojo heading into a Champions Cup semi-final – when will it all click?
“That’s a very good Red Roses, team isn’t it,” said Bemand. “World champions, current number one in the world. Typically what they do, they go through the gears and they blow teams away at the end. I’m really pleased that the second half was 12-12.
READ MORE
“The bit where we put ourselves in position, it was 21-0 before that. [I’m] Really encouraged with the spirit that the Irish girls showed in the second half.”
It was put to Bemand that, after last year’s 44-point defeat at home, a 21-point margin away from home could be interpreted as progress.
“I think we’re progressing,” he agreed. “There’s elements of that first half where I think we’re in control of the ball, we give it away too early in the attack set. We don’t build the phases against a good Red Roses defence. We’ve got to learn to go deeper in the attack sets.”
As well as focusing on the positives of his team’s performance – all that can be done really given the vastly superior quality of this English side – Bemand focused on a lack of luck with officiating decisions. He highlighted one in particular early on when defending close to their own line. He could also have referenced some interesting scrum interpretation as well as a missed knock-on in the build-up to England’s second try.
“We’ll look back and think we were a little bit hard done by,” said Ireland’s head coach. “I think we got a really good turnover in our 22 with Cli Moloney Macdonald, but the penalty is given against us and they get their first try off the back of it.
“At some point, people are going to realise that we’ve got some firepower, that we create turnovers. There’s two even teams out there and hopefully we start to get a little bit of the rub of the green.”
