Room for improvement was the verdict of Ireland head coach following his side's comprehensive 40-14 victory over Wales in Sunday’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations encounter in Newport.
Ireland scored six tries and enjoyed the lion’s share of possession away from home to easily account for Wales at Rodney Parade.
The win cement’s Ireland’s place in third position in the table behind the group’s two strongest sides, England and France, and it was the second win of the campaign on the road, having already beaten Italy in Rome.
And yet the head coach described the performance as "frustrating" while admitting that he was a touch disappointed at the final whistle, despite the 26-point victory.
"It’s a bit of a funny one; to come away to a place like Wales and record a win – they haven’t been that plentiful in the near distant past – score tries and pick up a bonus point, it’s really important. So from that perspective, we’re happy. But I’m a little disappointed that we let a statement victory get away from us," said Bemand, speaking after the game.
"I would have liked to see us kick through the gears in the last 15, 18 minutes. We have got time to post scores, and we should have posted some scores, and we should have been posting north side of 50.
"So bitter-sweet. I’m pleased that we got the result, I think we’ve a bit to work on for next week, but we’ve achieved what we set out to do; we’ve had two away games, and we’ve won both."
Bemand elaborated a touch on the philosophy behind his thinking, emphasising the importance of performance when it comes to analysing matches.
Quality performances will ensure that the results follow, and while the outcome was rarely in doubt, once Ireland accounted for Wales’ fast start, the manner of the win, and the tally on the board offered cause for concern for Bemand.
"We’ll always go after the performance, and we figured if we got our performance right, the scores would come," said Bemand.
"I think there are bits of the performance where we left points out there, opportunities out there, some clear and obvious, some less so.
"It was a bit of a frustrating afternoon, Wales were able to get pressure around the breakdown, and some bits of that was on us, so we need to look at that and see what we can do.
"We didn’t quite get the gears going, like we would have liked, but we’re happy enough with the win."
Again Bemand offered insight as to where he was coming from in terms of critiquing his side’s showing in their penultimate fixture of this year’s competition, with an obvious aspiration to close the gap on those aforementioned top two.
Ireland’s performances have improved dramatically since Bemand took over, and while that was abundantly clear for large parts of the France and England games, they were ultimately losing performances.
"We spoke about closing gaps," said Bemand. "We don’t want to finish top of the group that can’t close the gap, we want to get closer to France and England.
"I said after the first game that we were disappointed not to get more out of the France game, and really if we want to get closer to those guys we need elements of the performance out there that we need to keep getting after."
Next stop Scotland, as Ireland look to finish the campaign on a high with a clean sweep of wins on the road, and while there is a quick turnaround and a bit of logistics to negotiate, Bemand is confident that his team will be ready to go to deliver a performance at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh next Saturday afternoon.
"I don’t think it gets easier next week, Scotland away is a tough game, so we’re going to have to go back with a six-day turnaround and double travel, but I think we are going to be primed and ready to go and try to put in a performance up there."
