Ireland coach Scott Bemand says qualification for the 2025 Rugby World Cup is the number one priority, ahead of the Guinness Women's Six Nations which gets under way later this month.
The Englishman is gearing up for his first Six Nations championship since taking charge last summer, when he replaced outgoing coach Greg McWilliams.
Ireland finished bottom of the table last year, losing all six games and collecting the wooden spoon for the first time since 2004, but the new boss has set an ambitious target for 2024, looking for a top-three finish which would see them qualify for next year's World Cup in England.
"If anybody is to ask me what we want out of this Six Nations, it's World Cup qualification," he told RTÉ Sport.
"It’s one of our strategic priorities for the IRFU, it’s something we’ve got to go after."
Ireland open their campaign away to France in Le Mans on Saturday 23 March, while they also face England away from home in the penultimate round.
The realistic targets for wins would be their three home games, as they welcome Italy to the RDS on Sunday 31 March, before taking on Wales in Cork (13 April), before closing off the championship against Scotland on 27 April in Belfast.
"How we go after it [qualification], there's some home games we want to do really well in, there are some away games that we believe we can go and fire some shots in.
"We know what we want out of this, we’d like to pick out wins, we’d like to fire some shots but ultimately, we’d like to qualify for the World Cup.
"We know where we need to get to. We know where the north star is, and we know the gaps that we've got to close, so it allows us to know exactly where we’re heading and it gives us a bit of purpose, and that’s the journey we’re on now.
"WXV gave us a reasonable start but the competition level was the competition level. It was nice to get some wins, nice to get some confidence but we know the Six Nations is much, much harder. We got three home games, three games that we think we can be really, really competitive in and we’re going to do our damnest," he added.
Ireland's preparations have been boosted by the inclusion of five players from the IRFU Sevens programme, among them Beibhinn Parsons and Eve Higgins.
The pair were involved for Bemand during their WXV3 campaign in Dubai last year, but were kept back from the XV-a-side game for the 2023 Six Nations as Ireland prioritised qualification for the Olympic Sevens.
It remains to be seen how much of the Six Nations they will be available for, with the Hong Kong leg of the SVNS series on 5-7 April falling during the first break-week of the championship, while there's also a tournament in Singapore in early May, the week after Ireland's final game against Scotland.
"There's a talent pool in Ireland that we need to maximise," Bemand added.
"We’re very aligned from both programmes, myself and [Sevens head coach] Allen Temple-Jones have a great working relationship where we know we need to pool our players and we need to release them at the right times and points to achieve success on two fronts."
Bemand was non-committal around whether or not his Sevens contingent would be with him for the duration of the championship.
"It’s where it is at the minute, it’s great to get their support, we’ll offer support back and we’ll choose game by game what we need to achieve.
"I think it will be a little bit more settled than that, we’ll have a plan we’ll be able to follow, to give the players the best chance for success rather than just flippantly in and out. There’ll be a process to follow."
Listen to the RTÉ Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch England v Ireland in the Guinness Six Nations on Saturday from 4pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch Wales v France on Sunday from 2.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
