Scott Bemand said he was delighted how Ireland responded to going behind early against Scotland as they began their World Cup warm-up campaign with victory.
Missing star forwards Erin King, Dorothy Wall and Aoife Wafer, Ireland handed debuts to Nancy McGillivray, Ivana Kiripati and Ailish Quinn, while Sam Monaghan and Béibhinn Parsons made long-awaited comebacks from injury.
But the new-look side started slowly against a visiting Scottish outfit who had been in action against Italy last weekend.
"The first 20 looked like we hadn't had a game after a long pre-season, so Scotland played last week and it led to them being more battle-hardened," the head coach told RTÉ Sport’s Michael Corcoran after the 27-21 win in Cork.
"What I was delighted with was a sense of no panic, the sense of understanding what we needed to show physically, what we needed to show from a process perspective and we worked our way through it."
Tries either side of half-time for Sadhbh McGrath, Méabh Deely and McGillivray put Ireland ahead, and while they fell behind again to Emma Orr’s 64th minute try, replacements Niamh O’Dowd and Deirbhile Nic a Bháird crossed to secure the win.
"A big shout out to some of the girls coming on and creating the momentum," added the head coach, who replaced Monaghan with Fiona Tuite at the end of the first half.
"You've got to be able to get on top of teams and some of the girls came on and had a massive role in that.
"The first 20 was about getting through it.
"The first score [McGrath’s] before half-time gave us a sense of belief and when we caught the kick-off we looked like we were there to play.
"That [Deely] try in particular looked like we were clinical and a little bit of that ruthless touch.
"For seven weeks we’ve been going at each other [at training] and we come up against a different shirt and it creates a different problem.
"How we can execute when we get those moments will be something we look at.
"It’s a bit of a patch-up there and we’ll be all right for Canada next week."
Belfast hosts Ireland’s next warm-up game against the number two side in the world, who beat Bemand’s team 21-8 in last year’s WXV1.
"[Today was] game one, we go into next week against Canada with some bits to get after and we’ll certainly get after it," he said.
"In WXV, they pushed England pretty hard.
"It’s a great chance for us to see how far we’ve come. We wanted to build 'performance momentum’ and there’s area of that game where we can say we have.
"We’ve got new caps on the pitch, we’re building our depth all the time.
"Now we’re ready to go and test it against a World Cup contender."
