Head coach Tom Tierney has said Ireland cannot “force things” if they are chasing a score in their crucial RBS 6 Nations clash against Scotland on Sunday (Live RTÉ2/RTÉ Player from 12.45, kick-off 1pm).
Ireland go into the final round of games level on points with France but 20 points behind on scoring difference.
With France due to play England on Saturday, Ireland will start their game against Scotland knowing what they have to do to win the championship: if France win, Ireland will need to beat the Scots by 21 points more than France’s winning margin over England. If England win, any margin of victory would make Ireland champions.
For an Irish team that lost several leaders in the aftermath of last year’s World Cup – then-captain Fiona Coghlan; record caps-holder Lynne Cantwell and Grace Davitt all hung up their international boots – being in contention for silverware is a sign of remarkably rapid progress.
“It’s a great opportunity for us,” Tierney told RTÉ Sport. “It’s about just being mentally ready now to be professional in the execution of the job.”
“Whatever happens on Saturday, there is going to be a lot of emotion, and we need to really, really be smart in how we deal with that" - Tom Tierney
Tierney has spoken in the past of the small window between his appointment last December and the Six Nations, but he now feels that a lot of the tweaks the team have been trying to implement since then are coming to fruition.
“I would put the credit straight back on the players,” he said. “Firstly, the quality that’s there, anyway, and also then, the buy-in – the couple of areas that we spoke about, both in defence and attack ... we tried to be as good as we could be.
“And thankfully they’ve really rallied around it, and they’ve been very, very impressive. And [vying for the title] is nothing that they don’t deserve, because the effort and the commitment that they’ve put in, on top of the professional attitude, has been second to none.”
He said the team would be watching the England v France clash and that the result would feed into Ireland’s plans for their game against Scotland, which will be broadcast live on RTÉ2.
“Once we get the information, then on Saturday night we’ll just fine-tune what we need to do on Sunday," he said.
However, Tierney said Ireland would not change the way they played on Sunday if they found themselves chasing a score.
“Whatever happens on Saturday, there is going to be a lot of emotion, and we need to really, really be smart in how we deal with that. And the best way to do that is to be mentally ready, just to execute the basics as best we can, get ourselves into the right positions, get ourselves into the right areas of the park.
“And then, when we get our opportunities, not to panic, not force things. And that’s the key: when you’re chasing scores, it’s less panic [and] usually the result goes your way.”
