Ireland flanker Dorothy Wall has hit back against the "insulting" nature of the coverage of their upcoming TikTok Women's Six Nations meeting with England in Cork.
Greg McWilliams' side welcome the defending champions to Musgrave Park on Saturday, with the two teams experiencing vastly different championships this season.
From an Irish point of view, the numbers make for grim reading; Saturday's 24-7 defeat to Italy has left them with their worst start to a championship since 2007, while they've mustered just two tries and 15 points in comparison to the 31 tries and 185 points for the visitors, who are heavy favourites to go on and win a fifth title in a row later this month.
Simon Middleton's England were 69-0 winners when the teams met in Northampton 12 months ago, with suggestions in the UK media that the World Cup finalists could inflict a record defeat on Ireland this week, or even surpass the 89-0 Six Nations record they set against Scotland in 2011.
And Wall was not impressed with suggestions that this weekend's game could be a bad look for the tournament.
"People speculate the whole time," the 22-year-old said.
"There was also someone who said we just shouldn't play the game. That's absolutely ridiculous, why do you think we put on an Irish jersey, why do you think we put in as much work as we do?
"This stuff about a record score, and not playing the game, it's just very insulting to us as players who go out every day and put everything into this Irish jersey. To play a Six Nations, and fair enough the results haven't gone our way, but that's part of sport. You fail and learn and fail again and eventually go get there. All the talk of that sort of stuff does nothing for us.
"What's the point in speculating on that? We largely ignore that.
"I'm just wondering when people will get bored of the same old narrative to be honest? The same thing can only be said so many times. We're playing for Ireland and some of the stuff being said is frankly ridiculous. We don't pay heed to it, but it's getting boring," added Wall (below).
Assistant coach Niamh Briggs admitted Ireland have to be "realistic" about their chances this weekend and embrace the occasion of welcoming the World Cup runners-up to Cork.
And Wall says regardless of what happens on Saturday, they won't be daunted by the reputation of their opponents.
"They're human. It's 15 players against 15 players. When you dumb it down to that, the task isn't as daunting.
"We'll do everything in our power to prepare as best we can, and try and reach and exceed the goals we've set out for ourselves. After that, it's a game of rugby."
Meanwhile, captain Nichola Fryday says she does not believe the IRFU's move to navy shorts for the women's team was a "PR stunt".
Ireland switched from traditional white shorts to navy before the start of the championship, owing to concerns around period anxiety for the squad, but a report in The Telegraph last week alleges the squad were never consulted over it.
That report also detailed the misgivings of an unnamed player over how some players found out they were dropped via social media, and while Fryday says there have been issues around the communication of team news in the past, it was addressed by players and management at the start of this season.
"Selection, we came together at the start of the group and discussed what would be the best way for that to be handled, so that girls could feel like it was a clear process each week," Fryday said.
"That's been followed, and in the past yes there have been issues, but for this tournament it's not been a huge issue for us.
"The navy shorts, I don't agree with the statement of it being "PR stunt", I don't believe that was the case, but if girls felt like that then obviously we need to recognise that we need to communicate better to players and we've taken that on board, we will be doing it in the future."
