Ireland 'embrace the opportunity' as they return to World Cup stage in style

Ireland's Fiona Tuite signs autographs for fans after the game against Japan in the World Cup opener. Picture: Ben Brady/Inpho

World Cup Pool C: Ireland 42 Japan 14

Ireland are 80 minutes away from a World Cup quarter-final. Blow away the froth from an encouraging Pool C opener against an outgunned but gutsy Japanese team and that’s the bottom line after Sunday afternoon’s work in Northampton.

This is no small thing.

Ireland’s last drink from this cup was back in 2017 when their turn hosting in Dublin and Belfast dribbled away into a dispiriting on-field experience. Three successive losses, after two opening wins, ultimately left them eighth and with the sourest of tastes.

Follow up this six-try effort against Japan with another win over Spain at the same venue next week and they are into that last eight with a game to spare. No bad thing given their last Pool C date is with New Zealand’s world champions.

And it’s easy forget the dearth of experience in this squad, how big a deal this was.

Only Cliodhna Moloney MacDonald had played in that 2017 World Cup. A dozen of this group had just the torture of Parma in 2021, when losses to Spain and Scotland cost Adam Griggs’ side the chance to feature in New Zealand in 2022, to look back on.

So, an itch was scratched here, too.

“You base everything on your training and we succeeded in getting a great training week under our belt,” said head coach Scott Bemand. “That for me should give everyone confidence going into these games. We spoke about performance-wise what we want out of this.

“But when you’ve been away for a few years you want to get everything you can out of an experience like this. We’ve turned up, it’s a near full Franklin’s Gardens, it’s a great occasion, the sun is out, this is the time of your lives.

“Don’t be anxious about it, embrace the opportunity.” They did that. Ireland were 14-0 up within ten minutes with Amee-Leigh Costigan haring over and Neve Jones going in off the back of a maul. The gap was 28-7 by the break with Beibhinn Parsons and Fiona Tuite adding the second pair.

With Dannah O’Brien landing all six conversions on the day, Ireland looked comfortable despite the retort from Haraka Hirotsu close to the half-hour, but then Masami Kawamura claimed a second on the restart and the game teetered on an edge.

24 August 2025; Cliodhna Moloney MacDonald evades the tackle of Japan players Megumi Abe, left, and Minori Yamamoto. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Ireland needed some desperate defence, including a last-ditch ankle tackle by Aoibheann Reilly on Misaki Matsumura five-metres out to stop the deficit shrinking to seven points. An ill-judged offload later and Eve Higgins was under the posts at the other end.

Quite the sliding-door moment.

“You know what, you get moments in games when you get a score or you defend your line,” said Bemand. “We talk about coming through some adversity, it's pretty important that you get the defensive sets on your line. The defensive intent was outstanding at times today.” Enya Breen went over for the last of the tries but the second-half had been high on error count. Add in a misfiring lineout in the opening 40 and the Six Nations side turns to Spain next week with more than a few things to work on.

But the positives outweigh any of that. Brittany Hogan was player of the match for her all-round display at No.8 and Higgins must have pushed her all the way given the mess the athletic centre made of the Japanse defensive line.

Such a fast start was manna from heaven after their stodgy openings in the two warm-ups, there was real threat in a back three that has been under-utilised until now, and those defensive sets were impressive against an opponent that had plenty of ball.

Fiona Tuite, a lock, went well on her first start at blindside, and there was impact from the bench even if the effect of injury-enforced losses of Erin King and Dorothy Wall will only become truly apparent when they face the Black Ferns or a quarter-final.

Another plus? No injuries. Not of note, anyway. Edel McMahon played 76 minutes on her own return from injury and Aoife Wafer, still on the road back from a knee injury, was on site having stayed behind in Dublin to rehab the problem last week.

The 42 points scored make it the most Ireland have managed at any World Cup, two more than the total put up on Kazakhstan in 2014, and it begs the question what 23 Bemand will opt to put out against the Spanish in Northampton next Sunday.

As with all World Cups and tournaments, it’s a delicate balancing act between the primacy of banking wins and engineering some collective rhythm with the desire to spread the load and maintain the sense of competition for further down the road.

“I'll tell you what, we will take every game as seriously as it needs to be taken, and Spain are a good team,” said Bemand. “We'll take it seriously. We want to keep growing momentum, we want to keep giving people something to get after.” 

IRELAND: S Flood; B Parsons, A Dalton, E Higgins, AL Costigan; D O'Brien, A Reilly; N O’Dowd, N Jones, L Djougang; R Campbell, S Monaghan; F Tuite, E McMahon, B Hogan.

Replacements: A McGann for Costigan, E Breen for Higgins, E Perry for O’Dowd, E Corri-Fallon for Campbell, C Moloney-MacDonald for Jones (all 61); G Moore for Hogan, E Lane for Reilly (both 74), S McGrath for McMahon (76).

JAPAN: S Nishimura; M Matsumura, M Furuta, H Hirotsu, K Imakugi; A Otsuka, M Tsukui; S Kato, A Kuge, W Kitano; Y Sato, O Yoshimura; M Kawamura, I Nagata, S Saito.

Replacements: A Sakurai for Yoshimura and N Nagata for Kitano (both 51); M Mine for Kato and K Hosokawa for Saito, M Yamamoto for Nishimura, M Abe for Tsukui (all 61); K Taniguchi for Kuge (64), S Hatada for Imakugi (68).

Referee: C Munarini (Ita).