Ireland bid to banish RWC ‘hurt’

Ireland women’s rugby coach Tom Tierney claims he has not taken the criticism of him and his team’s displays personally despite the “hurt” of under-performing at this World Cup.

It has not been a good tournament for the host nation, with last Thursday’s comprehensive defeat by France ending their hopes of making the semi-finals.

Instead of taking centre stage against England in a big semi-final showdown tonight, the hosts will be the opening act at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast, facing Australia in a fifth place play-off semi-final.

Former Ireland scrum-half Tierney has taken some flak in recent days, but says he’s well able to handle it.

“I’m okay, there’s no fear of me... it is all part and parcel of the job. I have 21 years of being either a professional rugby player or a professional coach under my belt.

“All I have to ensure is that the players aren’t affected and they can go out and perform.

“It (criticism) has nothing to do with me. I have a job to do and the media have a job to do. It is what it is, so as long as the players aren’t affected then I have done my job. We’re all in this together and there’s a lot of things that have gone right that probably people have missed.

“It’s just not finishing things off or letting teams off the hook, that’s the disappointing part, but that’s behind us now and hopefully we can put in a good performance against Australia.”

Ireland struggled to beat the Wallaroos 19-17 in their opening Pool C game and then came from behind to beat Japan 24-14, with handling errors and missed tackles causing concern heading into the decider against France.

Despite narrowly beating the same opponents during the Six Nations, Ireland were swept aside in the first half last Thursday but improved massively in the second half.

The subsequent days have been difficult, but Tierney insists they are moving on.

“We had two brilliant weeks in UCD but at this stage of the tournament, whether you’re winning or losing, the mantra is less is more, so we’ve had a bit of down time, the girls had some free time and we’ve just focused on key areas we need to improve on.

“It’s been a challenge — we won’t shy away from that. There was a lot of disappointment and a lot of hurt. We were looking for a different result on Thursday but it’s in the past now. We’re not the first Irish team not to achieve what we wanted in a World Cup so there’s nothing new there.

“We just have to ensure the disappointment of the last few days is behind us and we’re looking forward to playing for Ireland again. Not many people get to play for their country and we’ve got to grab that with both hands.

“There has been a lot of ‘what ifs’ and ‘almosts’ in how we’ve played in the last three games so we’re going to hopefully put a lot of things on show that will get the girls on the front foot.”

Australia are Olympic champions in Sevens’ rugby and physically over-powered the Irish girls in the opening game. It is a strange dynamic to have the face the same side in the same tournament in less than two weeks, but forewarned is forearmed.

“It’s a bit of mind games, the Australians will be looking to improve in certain areas and be good in different areas.

“It’ll be a bit of cat and mouse but we are just looking at implementing a couple of things in attack and in defence and try to impose our game on the Australians.

“We were on the back foot physicality-wise for much of the first game and that’s going to be the focus.

“We knew from a pack perspective they were going to be very big, very aggressive, and with the sevens players coming back they were going to add real intensity to the breakdown, so we knew it was coming and we don’t expect anything different on this occasion.”

Tierney has made three changes, two in the pack with try-scorer against the French, Cliodhna Moloney for Leah Lyons at hooker and Ciara Cooney for Sophie Spence in the pack. Louise Galvin comes in for for Eimear Considine on the wing.

“It’s a settled enough team,” Tierney said. “There’s 12 players who started against the French, which was a hugely physical game, but we’re confident those girls can rock up again and are also confident the girls coming in will add value to the team.

“We want to make sure we get the balance right between the starting fifteen and having impact off the bench.”