Ireland will take confidence from display in France, says captain Edel McMahon

The visitors were ultimately beaten by Les Bleus in Le Mans.

Ireland Captain Edel McMahon speaks to the team huddle after the game. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady

Despite coming out on the wrong side of the final scoreline, Ireland women’s skipper Edel McMahon was able to glean positives from a 38-17 defeat to France in the opening round of the Women’s Six Nations Championship at Stade Marie-Marvingt in Le Mans earlier today.

Leading out the team in a solo capacity due to the absence through injury of co-captain Sam Monaghan, Clare native McMahon was part of a strong defensive effort by Ireland before her withdrawal in the 51st minute.

A mere four points (7-3) had separated the teams deep into the opening period, but a French side that are currently ranked third in the world subsequently wrapped up a bonus point victory just past the third-quarter mark. Yet Aoife Wafer and Aoife Dalton both crossed over in the closing stages of the action and while acknowledging there are plenty of areas that require improvement, McMahon is remaining upbeat ahead of tomorrow week’s second round showdown with Italy at the RDS.

“I think the girls showed an awful lot of heart today and I think we actually competed with France at times. To score a try in the 77th minute [through Dalton] because we put pressure on them was just a sign of this team. We had a clear game plan coming into this match and we stuck with that for the game,” McMahon remarked in a post-match TV interview.

“We need to clean up on a lot of things. Our exits, we need to get touch. Handling errors and then looking onto next week, we really need to tweak that line-out. We had a couple of opportunities that we let go. As a whole, I think we can take a lot of confidence knowing what we did to France today and bringing that to a home crowd against Italy in the RDS next week.”