Tom Tierney admitted Ireland didn’t perform against Japan on Sunday evening but remained confident his gritty team will click when it matters for their World Cup Pool C "cup final" with France.
Ireland were given a huge scare by the Sakura 15 at the Belfield Bowl, escaping with a 24-14 win after a Paula Fitzpatrick-inspired second-half recovery.
Tierney stood by his call to make seven changes to the team that beat Australia in last Wednesday’s opener, but conceded the host nation fell well short of the standards they've set themselves.
"It’s going to be a cup final against the French," the head coach said afterwards.
"Anything can happen. We’re under no illusions that we have to improve.
"We have to dust ourselves off and go again for Thursday. That’s the beauty of this tournament, the quick turnaround. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.
"We pretty much know what’s going to come at us from a French perspective"
"We didn’t play well, and we won. We’ll review it tomorrow morning and it’s on to the French game. It’s as simple as that. We’re not making any excuses about the performance, especially in that first half, but there was great resilience from the girls in the second half to score 24 points.
"We’re mightily relieved obviously. A win is a win but we’ve got a lot of work to do if we’re to be competitive against the French on Thursday night."
Ireland turned the French over in Donnybrook in the spring, digging out a memorable 13-10 victory.
To do that again they’ll need to raise their game several notches – France pummelled Japan 72-14 four days ago – but Tierney remained defiant.
"We went into the match against France in the Six Nations as complete underdogs," he said.
"We pulled a performance out of the bag. I think that’s well within our capabilities for Thursday. We have to really look after our jobs and the basics. We’re going to build it up nicely for a real crack.
"We’ve got a plan in palace. We pretty much know what’s going to come at us from a French perspective. It’s going to be hugely physical, it’s going to be hugely confrontational, they’re going to huge the full width of the field. We’ve just got to dust ourselves off.
"Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good in these pool stages."
