When Dorothy Wall and Erin King were deep in their injury rehab this summer, World Cup dreams crushed, these were the days driving them through the pain.
They'll have to wait until Australia in 2029 for their chance to take on the world, but this week they will at least get the opportunity to have a pop off the world champions.
While King suffered her season-ending knee injury in this fixture last year, Wall’s achilles tear came in the final round versus Scotland.
Her layoff wasn't as long as King’s, with the second row returning to action for Exeter Chiefs in November, but the first significant injury of her career has made her appreciate every chance she gets on the pitch.
"We talked about these weeks, playing England and what that would mean," Wall says of her time out injured.
"When you’re sitting in there doing upper body conditioning, it means even more when you get back in.
"That’s something I’ve kind of been reminding myself this week; If things don’t go to plan, if you make mistakes early in the week, that’s when you’re meant to make mistakes.
"It’s just about being present with it all and realising that it can be taken away from you so quickly. So it’s relishing it and even [recognising] how quickly an international rugby career is over."
She wins her 38th international cap this afternoon, and her Test rugby career illustrates the strides women’s rugby has taken.
There’s no official attendance available for Energia Park in Donnybrook when the Tipperary native made her Irish debut against Scotland in 2020, but you can safely assume it would have been a tiny fraction of the near-80,000 set to come through the turnstiles at Twickenham this afternoon.
While the rest of the nations won’t be threatening to touch that attendance record any time soon, last year’s World Cup is proof that if you put the structures in place for a team to succeed, it will put bums on seats.
The IRFU will be piggybacking off those good vibes next month with the first standalone women’s international at Aviva Stadium, with more than 17,000 tickets already snapped up for the final round against Scotland.
They’re not the only ones; this afternoon, Wales will host Scotland at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, while Scotland will face England next week at Murrayfield, with France versus England in Round 5 at Bordeaux’s impressive Stade Atlantique.
"I think the momentum post-World Cup, everyone's just hungry for it," Wall adds.
"Everyone wants more women's rugby. The World Cup was such an amazing event to grow the game, to grow the support, and I think it's perfect to encapsulate that support in the Six Nations, moving to bigger stadiums, more media attention, more interest in players and personalities.
"So the way the game has gone from even when I started - this is my seventh Six Nations - back in 2020, it's so different.
"It's completely different landscape, so I'm really excited to see where that goes in the next few years."
The 25-year-old was part of Ireland team that came to Twickenham in 2024 and fell to an 88-10 defeat to England, and Sophie Ellis Bextor’s half time show providing a haunting soundtrack to this day.
"Oh yeah, Murder On The Dancefloor...I can’t listen to that song after that!" she reflects, before insisting this is a very different Irish team returning to London, even many of the faces are still the same.
"Our lineout, our set-piece has completely [changed] since then. The experience that we’ve had in younger players. The cap numbers are going up and up.
"We’ve looked back at clips of that game and it nearly seems irrelevant in a sense. There’s good learnings from it, but we are so different since then, which is really good.
"I think probably the game in 2025 is a bit more relevant."
That Six Nations clash in Cork, one year ago this weekend, saw Ireland deservedly lead John Mitchell’s side 5-0 with just over half an hour played, and while the Red Roses eventually pulled away for a 49-5 win, it was a formative performance from Scott Bemand’s side.
"We definitely had them rattled with our defence, our setpiece.
"You can't really play the way they expect you to play. You have to show them a different picture because when teams play how they expect them to play it's easy for them.
"So that first half, we were really good, it's a real shame that we dropped off in the second half and we kind of let them build momentum with their bench and hopefully that's something that won't be seen this weekend.
"There's nothing like playing England for Irish players and Irish nation to get up for so that doesn't take too much. It's just kind of a DNA thing really," Wall adds.
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