Scott Bemand says he won't blame rustiness for Ireland’s first-half against Canada but refused to call the performance "unacceptable".
The world number two ranked team outscored the hosts five tries to one in an opening 40 minutes laced with basic errors, missed tackles and poor kicking from an Ireland side containing ten changes from last weekend’s win over Scotland.
Three second-half tries in a ten-minute spell for Ireland gave them some positive return but Canada were relatively comfortable 47-26 winners.
But with only two weeks until their World Cup opener against Japan in Northampton, Bemand’s side will know cutting out rudimentary errors is crucial to hopes of getting out of Pool C, which also contains Spain and New Zealand.
"'Unacceptable’, I think, is a word that’s too strong for the context of what we are going into now, and where we’ve come from," the head coach (above) told RTÉ Sport.
"We understand what we are going into and understand we are going to get our best performances out there [in England].
"There were some changes but it’s wasn’t our World Cup final today.
"Our next game is against Japan, the stakes are higher, it’s what we are up for.
"You can see why we have to get rugby into people before we get on the plane and go over to England.
"In terms of what we want to go after and how we go after it, I think there is an element of rustiness but I’m not going to hang my hat on that.
"I think we’ve come up against arguably the second best team in the world.
"I was telling Kevin [Rouet, Canada head coach] earlier, are they the favourites this time having pushed England last time?
"So they’ll be in the mix.
"We wanted a high-stakes challenge. That gives us the opportunity to learn more than everybody else and go after that.
"You can see in terms of the game and how we prepared, we can tolerate a World Cup contender with the athleticism that the Canadian group have.
"The next bit is the technical, tactical bit.
"There’ll be some tweaks that we’ll be able to learn a lot about today, which I think tees us up well for Japan, Spain and New Zealand."
Bemand has already informed the players who have made the 32-woman squad that will be named publicly on Monday for the World Cup.
He played down fears around back row Brittany Hogan (above), who was withdrawn a few minutes after receiving attention for an injury in the second half.
Ireland are already without forwards Erin King and Dorothy Wall for the World Cup, while Aoife Wafer is a doubt with a knee injury and co-captain Edel McMahon was not used in either warm-up game as she recovers from a knee injury.
"Britt was emm, it’s actually nothing too serious, just as you go through you get the odd bump and bruise," he said.
"We retain the right to be a little bit cautious and take people off a little bit early.
"If this was a quarter-final, she could have stayed on.
"Britt’s obviously a big player and has been the last two years.
"I’m happy with how our medics have operated. We're in constant communication on the sideline - who’s under pressure, who’s got a niggle, where it sits, what it looks like for next week?
"We’ve plans put in place and we got a small scenario and we can be a little bit protective here."
Despite the result, Bemand was able to take some satisfaction from a second half in which they crossed three times, Béibhinn Parsons and Anna McGann finishing with a brace each, while they also had spells of pressure that they failed to convert.
He said: "In that second half, when we started to gather a bit of our own momentum, it was by doing exactly what we wanted to do from the start really.
"It gets a little bit more difficult to do. Some of the kicks that Dannah [O’Brien] put in in the second half, in terms of finding turf. Some of the energy…Eve Higgins coming on, what she brought.
"I thought she was worth a mention and then you start creating these opportunities.
"Anna is an incredible running threat and she got hit by two [for her second try], but it was the second effort in the tackle for her to break the tackle.
"We’re seeing it in training. Transitioning that into the game hopefully gives players more belief to go bring it to life."
