Scott Bemand says Ireland have drawn a line in the sand and won't retreat following a battling five-try defeat to France in their Guinness Women’s Six Nations opener.
While Les Bleues were in control throughout the game, Ireland, who finished last season’s campaign with five defeats, looked a much-improved outfit from the side that were beaten by 50 points in Musgrave Park 12 months ago.
Aggressive Irish defence kept the score at 7-3 until the 32nd minute and France were able to add three second-half tries to their tally and ultimately ran out 38-17 victors.
"I think we wanted to come here and draw a bit of line in terms of what the performance would look like," Bemand told RTÉ Sport.
"First and foremost, when you come to France, you want to be hard to beat. I think the defence is starting to show what it can do and what it could possibly evolve into what it wants to be about.
"I think the girls hung in there for the whole game, scrapping away and under quite a bit of pressure at times. That was a bit of a standout.
"I think 32 minutes in, it was 7-3 so we know the French get off to a fast start and they did but they didn’t score again for a good bit.
"Even in that period we had a bit of momentum. When we got to the areas were we’d like to play a bit more, the set-piece creaked a little bit but that’s stuff that we can work out."
Having scored just three tries in the 2023 Six Nations, including a penalty try, Ireland twice crossed for five-pointers at the Stade Marie-Marvingt.
While the game was over as a contest, Aoife Water and Aoife Dalton picked up scores that Ireland’s performance deserved.
It took video footage to confirm, but Ireland have their first try of the 2024 Six Nations courtesy of Aoife Wafer.
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"We said that something that would show through would be the character of the group," added the former England assistant coach.
"Defence is normally a thing that shines a light on that so it’s nice to see Declan [Danagher’s] defence get one at the end, put a bit of pressure on them.
"France roll their bench and throw it around a bit, that’s always going to bring opportunities, we’ve got to be there to put them under pressure to score them.
"The character of the group since I’ve been involved has never been in question. I'm immensely proud of that.
"There are bits we can tidy up, bits of confidence that will continue to grow, both in the kicking game and the attacking game and the set-piece. We’ve got plenty to go at.
"That was always going to be the case. The key thing you want to say is that we gave a good account of ourselves in that respect so we drew a line in the sand and we can’t go backwards from that."
Ireland shipped nine tries and missed 43 tackles in last season’s encounter, during which they played the majority of the game against 14 players.
The visitors’ tally on Saturday afternoon was 13 missed tackles.
Skipper Edel McMahon was happy that her side didn’t deflate despite Pauline Bourdon Sansus’ third minute try.
"France scoring early didn’t turn the heads down," said the flanker.
"We turned the screw and got up the field.
"I think we executed our game plan quite well at times but we weren’t clinical in our set piece and trying to exit.
"If you want to compare it to last year, we certainly had a game plan and we stuck to it. We get ourselves up the pitch and got two scores. We put pressure on them."
Ireland host Italy at the RDS on Sunday week at 3pm.
"Last year was coming out of watching a horror film, this year you've kind of come out of watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – there’s a bit of hope."
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 23, 2024
Lindsay Peat feels Ireland are in a much better position than last year, but have to show that at home to Italy. pic.twitter.com/70Z8QW7Q6s
