'We’ve just got to be a little bit smarter' - Ireland outclassed by Black Ferns but scoreboard does them no justice
Ireland's Head Coach Scott Bemand speaks to Ireland players after the match. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady.
New Zealand 40 Ireland 0
There isn’t such a thing as a ‘good’,or a digestible, 40-0 defeat. There can’t be. But this World Cup showdown for top spot in Pool C between two sides that had already booked passage to the knockouts wasn’t quite as awful as it might look for Ireland.
That the Six Nations side got left holding a doughnut was an injustice. Yes, they weren’t clinical enough when they engineered their openings, but how this game ended without an Irish contribution to the scoreboard almost beggars belief.
Take away the two tries and 14 points the Kiwis scored in garbage time add in just one Irish try to the other column, and you have a more accurate reflection on a game that had plenty going for it even if the 30,017 looking on already knew the ending.
There was a gap, of course there was, just not that big a gap.
How we perceive this one depends to a degree on what we expected. The bookies had the world champions at 28-point favourites to avenge their loss to Ireland in the WXV1s last year so it's not as if anyone expected a repeat of Marcoussis in 2014 here.
“We went from 26 [down] to 40 quite quickly at the end of the game,” said head coach Scott Bemand. “In terms of how we started the game, we created momentum and we created opportunities. If you look back at that we’ve just got to be a little bit smarter in how we take points when we’re in the score zone.”
Ireland had a series of promising attacking thrusts, a handful of chances when camped on the Kiwi line, only for a combination of aggressive and physical defence, poor execution and a few bad refereeing decisions to go against them.
Bemand acknowledged the influence that black line played.
“If you look over the last two weeks we’ve actually been pretty clinical in terms of getting into the score zone and coming away with points. Clearly, a different challenge against New Zealand in the type of athlete and the type of player they’ve got, the physicality they bring.
“The fact we’re getting in there and creating momentum and getting opportunities to get ‘ins’ will be something we’ll look at and go ‘okay, we understand we need to do more of that again against another World Cup contender next week’.”
Irish errors on the other side of the ball contributed some to the six tries the Black Ferns scored. Isn’t that always the way? The fact of it is that New Zealand were electric at times whenever the slightest sliver of time and space presented itself.
The 18-year old phenom Braxton Sorensen-McGee clinched her hat-trick with New Zealand’s fifth, fellow teen Jorja Miller was lethal with ball in hand and Renee Holmes gave an absolute exhibition of kicking off the tee.
The reigning champions will be hard stopped again.
New Zealand targeted Ireland out-half Dannah O’Brien, they flew up in Irish faces all day long, and the danger is that a defeat of this nature and magnitude could bleed into next week’s preparations for the battle with Les Bleus.
“The players spoke really well at the end there. They understand that we actually got ins,” said Bemand. “For the first block of that game we found ins and we had opportunities late in the game when the bench came on and brought a little bit of energy.
“That showed we can get back on top. We’ve just got to be a bit smarter about how to finish off points when we get into the points zone. If we do that we’ll take it later into the games and that’s where you’ve got to be at the business end.”
Ireland won’t have the same swathes of green in the stands for the quarter-final in Exeter but they will hope to be better stocked on the pitch with Aoife Wafer possibly featuring for the first time and hybrid lock/back row Fiona Tuite and versatile back Enya Breen available again.
Bemand was upbeat on injuries suffered here to Stacey Flood, Edel McMahon and Eve Higgins and if that’s the case, and if Ireland can sieve this shutout for positives, then it may be that Brighton can kick them on rather than drag them down.
“There’s been a bit of debate going on about what and how we select for this game. The last two years somebody like Dannah O’Brien has been able to go into those sort of theatres, big crowds and lots of noise, and each time she’s got better.
“Each time she’s dealt with the pressure, the crowd, the noise better and better. She and a lot of the others will learn loads from being in that environment today. Hopefully we learn to feed off that energy.”
R Holmes; B Sorensen McGee, S Waaka, S Brunt, P Woodman-Wickliffe; R Demant, R Pouri-Lane; C Viliko, G Ponsonby, T Kalounivale; M Roos, Alana Bremner; L Sae, J Miller, L Mikaele-Tu’u.
L Bayfield for Bremner (26-33 and 55); A Rule for Kalounivale (31); A Leti-I’iga for Woodman-Wickliffe (52); K Henwood for Viliko and K Tukuafu for Sae (both 55); M Joseph for Pouri-Lane (63); VR Green for Ponsonby and T Setefano for Brunt (both 69).
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; G Moore, E McMahon, B Hogan.
N McGillivray for Flood (34); C Boles for McMahon and A McGann for Parsons (both 45); C Moloney-MacDonald for Jones (50); S McCarthy for O’Dowd, S McGrath for Djougang, E Lane for Reilly, E Corri-Fallon for Monaghan for (all 61); B Parsons for Higgins (74).
H Davidson (Scotland).
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