‘I’m confident we’ll land a few’ – Ireland coach Bemand

As Ireland prepare to kick off their Women’s Six Nations campaign against France on Saturday in Belfast, head coach Scott Bemand says he is confident that his side will “can land a few.”

The Irish defeated Australia to finish third in the previous year’s Six Nations, earning them a spot at this summer’s World Cup, and won the WXV1 tournament in stunning style against world champions New Zealand in September.

Their next task will be to overthrow England and France’s recent Six Nations dominance.

We must advance our game. We want to at least partially close the gap between England and France, which is perhaps monopolized. Before the weekend encounter with Les Bleus, Bemand remarked, “They’ve been the top two in the Six Nations for a while.

We had not scored a point in three years before that, and we did so in a 38-17 defeat by France last year.

Bemand thinks his team can face off against France this time around even more.

We’ve made some adjustments to our game, we’ve been putting a lot of effort into the players’ learning, and we think we can do that in the game against France.

We would certainly like to fire a few more shots than we did the first time, so.”

There are a lot of different experiences that we had during the Six Nations and the WXV1, and I believe there is a great group there with a variety of styles of playing.

Bemand thinks Ireland’s ability to compete at Kingspan Stadium will depend heavily on how strong their replacements will be.

He continued, “We have firepower on the bench, and the strength of a squad is typically measured by what firepower you have on the bench,” adding.

France are a strong team, and I believe the 20th minute will be the difference. The 23 will be required to perform over the weekend, so why? I have complete confidence in our collective, which is improving our depth and building nicely.