Scott Bemand said Ireland got what they wanted from the opening Rugby World Cup gambit as they recorded a 42-14 victory over Japan.
Ireland had a bonus point wrapped up by the 37th minute and despite a frantic Japan salvo at the start of the second half, pulled clear to win at a canter.
There had been a long build-up to the tournament with Ireland having secured qualification in spring of 2024, either side of a two successful WXV campaigns.
However, there were little sign of nerves as Ireland, ranked six places higher than the Sakura, ran in two tries in the opening 10 minutes.
"We got out of the game what we wanted," Bemand (below), whose side take on Spain next Sunday, told RTÉ Sport after the match.
"Coming into an event like this comes with a load of unknowns, we're still a young group, still an inexperienced group that haven't experienced competitive rugby.
"Today we knew it was going to be a tricky challenge. Japan are a very good team, disciplined, don't give up, and we got what we wanted out of it.
"I was delighted that we went after our fast start, got the two tries on the board early and with a little bit of variety as well, which is going to be increasingly important as we go through the competition, you've got to find a way.
"So delighted that we've got the five competition points on the board and now on to Spain.
With Ireland missing out on qualification four years ago, only replacement hooker Clíodhna Moloney-MacDonald had previous experience at a World Cup.
But backs Amee-Leigh Costigan, Béibhinn Parsons, Aoibheann Reilly, Stacey Flood and Eve Higgins all had Olympic and Sevens World Series experience.
"If you can get your training piece right it gives you an enormous amount of confidence going into these games, so the girls trained really hard this week," he said.
"They competed, they've found a way, and part of us getting into the competition is you get out there and get your first game under your belt.
"We've been over here [in England] for 10 days now. We were desperate for a game, so now we've done that we can move on to the next game."
While Ireland were comfortable for the most part, the lineout was a mess at times, especially in the first half when they lost four.
"A perfect game of rugby doesn't exist," added the head coach.
"Here's some real moments that I thought were sublime out there today, and there's some real moments that we know we're going to need to be better week on week.
"So as an opener we've got what we wanted, we've scored some tries with some variety, we've shown some forward power, we've shown some backs prowess, but we're going to need to be better each week to get to where we want it to get to."
Injured flanker Aoife Wafer, who remained in Dublin to continue rehab after knee surgery, was spotted mixing with the squad before and after the game.
She had flown over last night as the match-day 23 were presented with their jerseys.
Asked about the long-shot possibility of the 22-year-old Six Nations player of the tournament featuring against Spain, Bemand was coy.
"It's been brilliant to bring Aoife in and say we're 32," he said.
"She came in when we were doing our jersey presentation yesterday, she walked in halfway through and it was just one of those moments, 'We're all here.'
"So we've got our squad, we've got our competition up and running."
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