Ireland women’s coach Tom Tierney admits that his side are up against it when they take on France in what looks like being a straight shoot-out for a World Cup semi-final place.
Thursday’s clash with the French always looked like being the deciding game of Pool C, but World Cup hosts Ireland have stuttered on their way to the final pool game.
Tierney’s side struggled to victory against Australia in their opening game and then had to produce a big comeback against the unfancied Japan after going in to half-time trailing by 14-0.
However while Tierney admits that Ireland have not been at their best, he claims that they know what they need to work on.
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Speaking to RTÉ Sport, he said: "There’s a few areas that we’ve pin-pointed but it’s all about the accuracy of doing the basics as well as possible under the pressure of defence.
"We’ve pin-pointed a couple of things at set-piece and obviously our ball-handling needs to improve which is something we’ve worked on and are very aware of."
The Ireland coach wants to see his side learn from the mistakes they made against Japan, but admits that beating France is going to be a major task for Ireland.
"We just need to learn from the fright that we got against Japan and get in a good mindset and be ready to go against the French, which is going to be a huge ask for us," he said.
"They’ve put a lot of points on Australia and Japan but we’re under no illusions that it’s a huge opportunity for us as well as a huge challenge.
"If we win, we’re in the semi-final of a World Cup and that’s our mindset."
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