Ireland 'going to focus on ourselves' ahead of showdown with rivals New Zealand, says O'Brien

Scott Bemand's side came through a Spanish challenge on Sunday.

Tue, 02 Sep, 2025 - 07:10

Simon Lewis

Dannah O’Brien has insisted the focus for Ireland’s Pool C finale against New Zealand in Brighton this Sunday will be on themselves rather than any rivalry with the defending champions.

Like the majority of her team-mates in the 2025 Women’s World Cup squad currently campaigning in England, the 21-year-old fly-half has fond memories of facing the Black Ferns last September 30 in Vancouver, when they eked out a 29-27 victory at WXV1 to rubber-stamp their rebuild under head coach Scott Bemand.

A little more than 11 months later, Ireland go into the rematch looking for a repeat of their heroics at BC Place with first place in the pool still up for grabs after back-to-back bonus-point victories over Japan and Spain, last Sunday, secured a return to the World Cup knockout stages for the first time since 2014.

Yet despite bagging a quarter-final berth at the earliest opportunity with their big wins at Northampton’s Franklin’s Gardens, Ireland have decamped to England’s south coast determined to concentrate on their continuing development rather than the status of their next opponents.

There were plenty of mis-steps in their 43-27 win over the Spanish to keep the Irish women on task as they settled into their new camp in Brighton on Monday, as O’Brien and her team-mates acknowledged during their scrap with a dogged and physical opponent.

“Just not to let errors compound, playing up in the right area of the pitch,” the fly-half said of Ireland’s in-game conversations as Spain kept knocking on the door, eventually scoring five tries.

“Just kind of next job mentality, trying to just get the girls back in the game. I think we came back really well, every time they scored, we kind of scored again, and came back with a double score. I think we stuck in it really well. Showed just a bit of resilience as well just to finish it out… just a few handling errors and maybe discipline with the ref and stuff.

“It's definitely in our hands still. All the mistakes are very fixable. We'll just look to improve next week.

“We're just going to focus on ourselves, like just cutting out small errors in our own half of the pitch, and not giving teams opportunities to pin us in. It's definitely going to be all about us, all about putting out another good performance. And yeah, we're massively excited to go out next week.”

Getting their game in the best shape possible for a quarter-final potentially against perennial Six Nations contenders France at Exeter’s Sandy Park in two weeks is motivation aplenty for Ireland and O’Brien added: “I think for us as a squad we have to use this game as another stepping stone.

“It's good to have the opportunity just to focus on our own game as well. We'll be looking for a good result and a massive performance next week. So it's really important that we focus on it.

“It's a great story, I suppose, the battle. We beat them the last day. Everyone knows they’re going to be a different outfit this time around. But yeah, it’s a massive challenge for us and I think we'll be up for it.”

O’Brien left Northamptonshire after three weeks in camp there with the satisfaction of having grabbed her first Ireland try as she opened the scoring against Spain seven minutes into the game “Incredible, it only took 28 caps but we got there in the end,” the Carlow native said. “Team try like, I think we had a decent start. Got on the board and then let Spain get on top of us again. But yeah I think we're happy with the result. Not everything went as planned, but it's a win at the end of the day.”

Like all but one of the Ireland squad, hooker Cliodhna Moloney-McDonald, O’Brien has embarked on her maiden World Cup campaign and it has been an entirely positive experience for her.

“It’s been great, it’s been really fun. I think the squad's having a really good time together, we're enjoying each other's company. We're just buzzing to see how far we can go, and focus on the next game. But we're buzzing to get down to Brighton as well, we’ve heard good things about it.

“This week we kind of focused on not getting too settled as a squad in our environment, we know we're going to get on the road now again. So yeah, I think we're just excited to move on to a different venue. It's going to be a massive crowd there, I think, next week. So yeah, we're really excited for that.”