Scotland keep Ireland chins up heading into final round of Women's Six Nations
England's Abby Dow (right) passes Ireland's Katie Corrigan as she runs in to score a try. Photo credit: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire.
SO that light at the end of the tunnel isn't a rampaging England forward, barrelling over the outmatched girls in green at Twickenham. Turns out it's Scotland, and their somewhat unexpected victory in Parma against Italy that turns next Saturday's final round game at Ravenhill into a potential play-off for World Cup 2025 qualification.
Ireland needed all the pick-me-ups they could find after a sobering Saturday against the Red Roses. John Mitchell's side afforded Ireland the respect of demolishing them from gun to tape, but it left Ireland in a demoralised place as they boarded the team bus afterwards.
Scotland's 17-10 away win in Italy moves them into the prized third spot, which guarantees qualification for next year's World Cup in England. However, if Ireland were to beat Scotland, they would still be depending on Wales doing Scott Bemand's girls a favour by defeating Italy at the Principality Stadium. The fact that game is at 12.15 means Ireland will know what they have to do when they take the field at Ravenhill.
Bemand is convinced his side can pick themselves up and be ready for the all important clash at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast but the defeat at Twickenham was a gut punch in every sense. The heaviest defeat in 22 years, 14 tries conceded and any momentum from the win over Wales a week earlier stillborn. A hat trick of tries from Ellie Kildunne and Abby Dow doesn’t begin to tell the story of a torrid afternoon in Twickenham.
“Certain amounts of honest play is important, if there’s tackles there to be made you have to try and make them, you have to work hard, work hard to make sure you’re in the right position to make them tackles," Bemand said afterwards.
“Momentum in rugby is a thing isn’t it. We sort of highlighted the tackling side of it, the breakdown. It’s not just about communication, there’s something to be said for gaining momentum in defence and we saw how they gained momentum in attack. They won that battle today which made it easier for them to break us down.”
Momentum is a word that came up more than once in the post match press conference, not just from Bemand but from captain Edel McMahon too, clearly forlorn after her side's no show.
“Those momentum swings probably caught us off guard a bit, we really struggled to cope with it. Despite the final score I think we finished off the game fairly positively and that’s something that we can take into next week. We’ll be very honest in our review of the game and see what we can change to help us beat Scotland next week.
“There were times where it was hard to get across a message or communicate simply because of the noise in the stadium. They had a lot of possession and utilised it very well with crisp passing and they killed us round the edges.”
Ireland struggled to deal with England’s pace and couldn't manage the width of the pitch as the likes of Abby Dow and Jess Breach caused havoc. Eight of England’s 14 tries came out wide.
Explained Bemand: “We had three weeks of positive momentum and then we had a blip, it depends how you approach it. I think we can put this to bed quite quickly and move on to the Scotland game.
“We’re a stable group, we’re an honest group, I think we’re all mature enough to admit that that wasn’t good enough. But they’ll be alright. As long as we can turn it around, take lessons from it and do something about it then we’re doing ok.
“We want this to feed players’ appetites for next week. I reckon we’ve got a dressing room full of people who are desperate to go and play that game straight away. I’d like to believe that we’ll get some bounce back from this. We’ll dust ourselves off but we’ll retain the confidence we’ve built over the last few weeks and hopefully we can put on a performance next week that people in Ireland can be proud of.”
A Dow 3, E Kildunne 3, M Jones 2, N Hunt, Z Aldcroft, J Breach 2, S Kebaya, M Feaunati.
H Aitchison 9.
Penalty try
D O’Brien.
E Kildunne; A Dow, M Jones (S Gregson 67), T Heard (E Scarratt 60), J Breach; H Aitchison, N Hunt (L Packer 49); H Botterman (M Carson 45), L Atkin-Davies (C Powell 34), M Muir (K Clifford 49 (L Hanlon 75), M Talling (L Hanlon 75), Z Aldcroft, S Kabeya, M Packer (M Feaunati 58), A Matthews.
: L Delaney (M Deely 40); K Corrigan, E Higgins (E Breen 40), A Dalton, B Parsons; D O’Brien, A Reilly (M Scuffil-McCabe 59); L Djougang (S McGrath 59), N Jones (C Moloney 44), C Haney (N O’Dowd 48), D Wall, H O’Connor, A Wafer, E McMahon, B Hogan (S Ikahihifo 55).
Ref: Aurélie Groizeleau.
Att: 48,778.
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