Ireland took another step forward in the 2026 Guinness Women's Six Nations, according to centre Eve Higgins.
Yesterday's emphatic 54-5 win against Scotland at Aviva Stadium confirmed a top half finish for the third time in a row, with England again lifting the title thanks to a 43-28 win away to France.
While Ireland had designs to hopefully pick off a long awaited win against the French, it didn’t come to pass, but the comfortable nature of their home wins against Italy, Wales and Scotland has shown Ireland have created a gap between themselves and the bottom half of the Six Nations.
"We haven't had three wins in the last number of Six Nations," Higgins said, as Ireland finished the championship with three victories for the first time in six years.
"We've come out of the Six Nations with performances against England and France that we can really take a lot of learnings from and small moments in those games can have a big impact. I think we can look back at this championship and really grow on it and gain a lot of confidence.
"This is where we press on and we take it in and build on each campaign and go into next year knowing that we can have performances like these."
The growth off the pitch has been even greater, with yesterday’s win marking Ireland’s first ever standalone women’s Test at the Aviva.
As an occasion, it could hardly have gone any better, with a crowd of 31,294 coming in above what the IRFU had been hoping for when they announced the fixture in September.
And those who did come to the Aviva were given their money’s worth as Ireland treated supporters to eight tries, seven of which came in a blistering first half.
"I think we're super proud that we did that on a stage like this and to give this record crowd something to cheer about," the Ireland centre added.
"Genuinely, I don't think there was nerves. I think there was excitement. These are days you live for.
"You want to play in days like these. We had a very special jersey presentation last night with the Heritage Caps, the first ever women's Ireland team and it just brought it back. They're the reason why we're out here and we're having days like these because they're the trailblazers that led it in 93.
"I think we all wanted to do every single person that's worn the green jersey, and everyone in the future that will wear the team jersey, proud today."
While half time downpour and a raft of substitutions took the sting out of Ireland’s scoring in the second half, their dominance was such that it took Scotland until the 77th minute to make their first entry to the Ireland 22.
And Higgins (above) says that was largely down to the physical dominance Ireland had gone after.
"We have I think the best back row in the competition with Erin [King], Britt [Hogan] and [Aoife] Wafer and it's easy to work off players like that," she said.
"At half time we spoke about how every moment we had became about physicality, and we know how good of a team we can be when we do that.
"We have belief when we go out and we play like that in the first half. I think we're super proud that we did that on a stage like this and to give this record crowd something to cheer about."
