Ireland head coach Scott Bemand admitted to contrasting emotions after his side began their Guinness Women's Six Nations campaign with a 33-12 defeat to England at Allianz Stadium Twickenham.
The Red Roses never fully clicked into top gear in their first game since becoming world champions, but held the visitors at arm’s length after a dominant first half in which they ran out to a 21-0 lead.
Unlike previous years in this fixture, Ireland never allowed the floodgates to open when the game went against them, and while they did score two second half tries, they came when the hosts were largely in cruise control.
And for Bemand, it was a good illustration of how far his team have come, and how far they still have to go.
"First of all, I don't like losing, which is fair to say," the head coach told RTÉ Sport.
"Coming to an occasion like today, which I thought was outstanding, it's great to play in front of a record crowd.
"Bits that we're pleased with. Obviously, there's bits to go at. It was always going to be a tough ask, wasn't it? Coming to the new world champions, number one in the world in front of 77,000 people. But we're hungry to get better quickly. And I think that's the message that we're going to take."
Unlike last year’s meeting in Cork where they had England rattled for the opening 35 minutes, Ireland struggled to deal with the power of the hosts in the first half this afternoon.
When they had the ball, they could never sustain any meaningful attacks, while without it they struggled with England’s power, conceding three tries – all from close range – to English front rows.
"We were disappointed with the first half to be 21 down," Bemand (above) added.
"Disappointed from some of the bits that we could control, in terms of, I thought we were probably a little bit second best at the breakdown around the physicality.
"But we issued a challenge and got a great response from it.
"What we'll do, I think there's bits in there that I think we can take an enormous amount of encouragement from.
"Second half, 12-all, where the Red Roses have got multiple times where they blow people away in the second half. And so I thought the challenge that was issued at half-time was responded to.
"I've seen a group that can stick in there longer. Half-time 21-0, you've got the capability sometimes that the scoreboard can get moving away from you. It's very hard to put a lid on it. So being able to hang in there and regroup and come back to process and get your game and fire some shots really."
With four games left to play, and three of those at home, Bemand was keen to stress the positives, particularly with their toughest game now behind them.
"It's incrementally been getting better. So we know there's a process. We want to be up there with world champions today, but there's a process that you have to get through and you have to keep making step changes in areas of your game.
"You've got to grow your squad, the capability within the squad.
"We've got four more games left in this competition. Ireland [men] lost their first game and were in it right until the last kick. So we want to be in these competitions, to be in it.
"Four more games to get our best out there and produce some results."
