Ireland captain Erin King praised her side’s physical edge after securing a 33-12 victory over Wales in Belfast.
The home side led 19-7 after the break, but were made to work for their scores as the Welsh forwards dominated a number of collisions while making a mess of some of Ireland’s ruck ball.
Ultimately, Aoife Wafer was instrumental with a player of the match display, scoring two tries and setting up another with a sumptuous offload.
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“I think in that first half, to be fair to Wales, they really brought it to us physically,” said King. “We wanted to raise that after the break. They really stuck it to us, especially in that first half.”
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Alongside the physical battle, Ireland were keen to cut loose when possible. There was that Wafer offload, plus a number of others that didn’t quite stick. Dannah O’Brien was equally on the lookout for cross kick opportunities to go with her usual strength of kicking long and on.
[ Ireland outlast scrappy Wales in BelfastOpens in new window ]
All told, Ireland threw nine offloads, made four line breaks and earned 261 metres after contact.
“I think we love our kicking game but we also love to play eyes up rugby,” said King. “It’s great we showed what we’re doing in training and what we’re capable of.”
Victory keeps Ireland on track to win all three home games in this Six Nations. Should Scotland be felled next Sunday at Lansdowne Road, Ireland will maintain their position in third, behind France and England.
“We said publicly we want three home wins,” King added. “To finish in the Aviva is such an exciting opportunity. To go and win it, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t going out for that.”
Secondrow Dorothy Wall praised the impact of assistant coach Alan O’Connor, who joined Ireland’s backroom staff ahead of this Six Nations.
O’Connor, recently retired from his playing days with Ulster, replaced Alex Codling as the man in charge of Ireland’s lineout after the latter linked up with Munster on a full-time basis.
Ireland’s set-piece has been a work in progress at times in this competition – an 81 per cent success rate a case in point on Saturday. Still, Ireland used the lineout as a platform to be able to score five tries at O’Connor’s old stomping ground.
“Codders [Codling] set an incredible foundation for us and gave us an education we didn’t have, something we didn’t experience before,” said Wall.
“Alan, freshly retired form Ulster, he has a great insight there. What Alan can tell me about my positioning in a one-on-one, it’s been great to get the live insight from the men’s game.
“He’s keen for us to get some more back ball, get the maul going. It’s been great.”
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