Senior coach John McKee says he's expecting a much improved performance from Ireland this Saturday, when they resume their TikTok Women's Six Nations against France at Musgrave Park.
The opening round 31-5 defeat to Wales in Cardiff has already left Ireland facing a huge battle to try secure a top three finish, which would see them rewarded with a spot in the top division of the new WXV competition later this year.
The squad got back down to work yesterday, as attention turns towards the visit of the French, who were 22-12 winners away to Italy on Sunday.
And McKee gave a frank assessment of how his side performed, particularly in their first half against Wales.
"There was a pretty blunt review and meetings, looking at some of the technical areas of the game we felt we let ourselves down," he said.
"The disappointing thing from a coaching perspective is we got beaten in some areas where we've done well before, and we got away from our process and the way we do things.
"The sessions yesterday around review were very good, and training today has been pretty good this morning, we got a lot of physical work done, particularly for the forwards, we're really looking forwards to the contest this week."
Much of the commentary since Saturday's defeat surrounded the gulf in size and power between the Irish forwards and the Welsh, which led to Wales dominating Ireland up front in the opening half.
But the New Zealander admits his side played into the hands of the hosts.
"Certainly, looking back on the last game, they put us on the back foot early on, they played to their strengths very well, and in the intensity of the game we didn't react well to fight ourselves out of the corner, so to speak.
"We know our scrum, we haven't got the biggest scrum around, but I believe when we really follow our process, we can be technically quite good in the way we need to deal with these teams which is staying low. Low body height in the scrum is our strength. You had to be technically very good to do that against a big pack. We didn't do it at the start of the game, and that game them easy entries into our defensive zone.
"Similarly with defending the maul I'm sure France will look at last week and think they can come at us through the maul, but we've done well on that in the past, we didn't do well in that area on Saturday, and once again that's about getting really low in the fight, working together. Defending mauls isn't an individual battle, and we went a bit individual under pressure at the weekend."
A number of players, including centre Enya Breen and full-back Meabh Deely are being managed for injuries, but McKee says he expects to have close to a full squad training later this week.
"On the back of that, our overall condition is good, that we can go the distance, and I think that this week the game will be more open and flowing which I think will suit us more," the former Fiji men's coach added.
"We allowed Wales to dictate the pace of the game, it was real stop-start, and not a lot of ball in play compared to other Test matches, so that suited a big, strong, forward pack which went stop-start-stop-start, setplay to setplay.
"This week I think there will be much more ball movement in the game, more gametime, and I think that will suit our players. It suits the smaller, faster players."
Saturday's visit of the world's third ranked team will be a first home game for Ireland since their final game of the Six Nations 11 months ago, with Musgrave Park their new home venue, having toured around the grounds in 2021 and 2022.
Wing Aoife Doyle, who was part of the Ireland side that last won a Six Nations in 2015, is hoping they can make their home advantage a factor this weekend.
"We have great memories in Musgrave Park," the Limerick woman said.
"We've great memories last year from the Six Nations and as Doro [Dorothy Wall] mentioned, we're two Munster heads, we're coming off the back of an Interpro win at Musgrave Park, so it does hold good memories for us.
"Just having the home crowd there, having our family there, we’re relying a lot on the public support and we know we do have a lot of supporters out there. They’re quite positive around our squad, so we’re hoping people come out in force and really get behind us this weekend."
Wall also spoke to the media on Tuesday, and the flanker says the side have taken confidence from how they reacted in the second half of the defeat in Cardiff.
"We write our own narrative," she said.
"And in terms of how we showed up in the second half is testament to what is in this team and how we react and how we hold ourselves. In terms of what you saw in the second half, that is very much how we're going about things this week in the lead-up to France.
"We’re a very close group, we have each other’s backs, there’s no doubt about it. And in terms of that open conversation, that criticism, the taking feedback, that is on a whole other level this week for us. Very proud of us actually in terms of how we’re going about this week."
Listen to live commentary of Ireland v France (Saturday 3.15pm) on RTÉ Radio 1, and follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport
Watch Leinster v Ulster in the Heineken Champions Cup on Saturday from 4.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
