Anna McGann believes that Ireland's away victory over Italy in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations could mark the start of a new era for the national side.
Ireland were convincing winners in Parma, running up a 54-12 scoreline to claim their first Six Nations win on the road since 2021.
Having started their campaign with defeat to France, Ireland need a statement performance in Italy and they produced just that, running in eight tries away from home.
McGann accounted for three of those tries as she crossed twice in the first half and finished things up with another late score.
Speaking afterwards, McGann was unable to hide her delight with the nature of the victory and she feels that it could mark the start for Ireland.
"It felt unbelievable," she said. "It was such a team performance from the start to the very finish.
"I think we showed real resilience at times, especially just at the end of the first half, keeping them out from the try line for about five minutes.
"It's just an unbelievable feeling to rewrite the past here in Parma. It's a new era for us.
"We were very frustrated after the last game against France. There were multiple times where we could have executed and got scores and we didn't. So I think that was a real focus for us this week.
"You could see out there that our execution was a lot higher. There's still things that we want to fix and we will going towards the next game."
That next game comes at home to England in two weeks and Patten is eager to bring their current form into that clash. She’s also counting on a big home crowd to help give Ireland an edge against their old rivals.
" We love home games, especially in Virgin Media Park," she said. "They usually bring out really good crowds, so we're really excited to go into that.
"We still have things to work on, like I said, but I think we're heading in the right direction.
"If we keep, keep up the execution and the resilience that we brought out today, I think would be pretty good."
