Still room to grow but mission accomplished for Ireland
Ireland's Amee-Leigh Costigan is tackled by Spain's Anne Fernandez de Corres. Pic: Ben Brady, Inpho
The singing seeping out of the Ireland dressing room as Scott Bemand did his post-match interviews told you all you needed to know about what reaching a World Cup quarter-final means to the Irishwomen inside and the reasons why.
As the strains of “Killeagh” morphed into a chant of “Go Linda, Go Linda” to celebrate the 50th Test appearance of tighthead prop Linda Djougang, head coach Bemand reflected on his team’s achievement at reaching the last eight with a pool game to spare.
A week on from an Irish-record World Cup points total in a 42-14 victory against Japan at Franklin’s Gardens, a much-changed side returned to the home of Northampton Saints and went one better, a 43-27 win over a durable and dogged Spain.
Early tries from fly-half Dannah O’Brien, which she converted hereself, and wing Amee-Leigh Costigan, had been wiped out by Spanish scores from Claudia Perez and Marieta Mellen, the second of which was converted by full-back Amalia Argudo. Yet Ireland finished the opening 40 minutes in command thanks to further tries by centre Eve Higgins and wing Anna McGann for a 24-12 half-time lead.
A Spanish try at the start of the second half from Claudia Pena reminded Ireland of their opponents' tenacity and Grace Moore’s double in the ensuing 14 minutes looked to have settled nerves. Yet Spain were not to be shaken off and their two tries either side of a second from McGann exposed some defensive frailties that Ireland will need to fix ahead of next Sunday’s final pool game against New Zealand.
Two bonus-point wins from two represented mission accomplished for the boss and his squad in their first tournament appearance since 2017 and though the concession of five tries to a side that has dominated Rugby Europe — the continent’s second tier outside the Six Nations — for almost a decade, displayed some defensive naivety, he had every right to feel satisfied at the accomplishment.
A final pool game against the defending champions awaits in Brighton next Sunday with the Black Ferns having secured a second bonus-point of their own in Exeter later on Sunday afternoon at the expense of the Japanese, and while there will need to be improvements from Ireland if they are to repeat their famous 2023 victory over the Kiwis at WXV3, they will leave Northamptonshire and head to the south coast in high spirits, as will the majority of Sunday’s 8,834 crowd.
“We knew what we wanted out of today, to get a bonus-point win,” Bemand said. “At the start of the day I'd have bitten your hand off, just because the magnitude of the importance of what it signifies, you can hear it in the other room now (the team singing ‘Killeagh’), to get into a World Cup quarter-final was something we wanted to achieve and we wanted to achieve it at the first chance.
“So two games in, we've taken two bonus-point wins from the games we've played and now we roll on to Brighton for another challenge which we're hugely excited about.”
Performance flaws aside, Ireland’s other concern was the injury sustained in the first half by match skipper Sam Monaghan, who led the side solo in the absence of rested co-captain Edel McMahon. The lock was removed on 23 minutes and Bemand intimated it was a precautionary move rather than a serious problem.
“She got a bang to a hip so she was moving a little more gingerly than we would have liked,” the head coach said.
“So knowing where we are and believing in the group that we've got around her, we made the decision to take her off and be proactive about games three to six should we get there.”
Overall, Bemand’s assessment of his side’s performance, as opposed to the win, was more measure than that of the positive outcome.
“I think we controlled it early and well, and some of the kicking in the first half was sublime, wasn't it, in the corners and just keeping pressure on the Spanish.
They're a good team, Spain, and what we started to do when we went through the game, we'd have good moments, good exits, and give them an entry back so it felt like a very flip flop game by the end of it where we'd get out, we'd give away a penalty, we're back in and we're defending 10 minutes of pick and go.
“So we'll look hard at that, about how we can stop it and what we need to do.
“There'll be some bits around what a contest looks like, but we need to learn to manage that, we need to learn to deal with it a bit better, so we'll look pretty hard at our own performance, the bits where we can grow and obviously there's bits to grow, there always is, we've never professed to be the finished article, but scoring another seven tries out there again today, it shows that we've got some firepower, it shows we've got some tools that we can call upon, it's just calling upon them consistently and more in the right space which will let us go longer and deeper into these games.”
For now though, the Irish women deserved their celebrations at Franklin’s Gardens after a successful three-week stint in the English midlands.
“The group are absolutely buzzing for a couple of reasons,” Bemand added, “the quarter-final, I've just been told it's the most Ireland have ever scored at a World Cup and it's only game two, and Linda Djougang, who's just got her 50th cap.
“Linda's such an important part for us. I was actually there for her first cap, in a different dugout (England’s), and it's been incredible watching somebody that we could see had potential to go on and become a real force in the women's game.
“Fifty caps takes a special player. I think it's a few years since Ireland had a 50 cap (Nora Stapleton in 2017), but she's got loads more caps in her. She can go deep in the game, she's physical, she's brave, she's a great person to have on our team.”
S Flood; A McGann, A Dalton (N McGillivray, 62), E Higgins, AL Costigan; D O'Brien (E Breen, 62), M Scuffil-McCabe (E Lane, 62); E Perry (S McCarthy, 62), C Moloney-MacDonald (N Jones, 62), L Djougang (S McGrath, 62); E Corri-Fallon, S Monaghan –captain (B Hogan, 23); F Tuite (R Campbell, 70), C Boles, G Moore.
A Argudo (L Ducher, 66); C Perez, C Pena, C Cano, C Piquero; Z Perez, A F De Corres (B Vergara, 71); G Silva (L Delgado, 58), M Romain Mallen (C Blanco, 55), E Garcia (M De Andres, 44); L Alameda – captain (A Puig, 71), E Martinez (M Castelo, 51); L Pinerio, A Peralta (N Garcia, 68), V Perez.
Kat Roche (USA)
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