Scott Bemand insists Ireland are right where they need to be at the Women's Rugby World Cup, after they secured their quarter-final spot with a game to spare following this afternoon's 43-27 win against Spain in Northampton.
Ireland weren't at their best despite breaking their points scoring record at the tournament for the second week in a row, struggling to deal with Spain’s big ball carriers.
But, aside from a brief spell in the first half where they conceded two quick tries, they held the underdogs at arm’s length throughout.
With their quarter-final spot now safe, Ireland head to Brighton next week for a pool decider against New Zealand, the winners of which will likely avoid France in the last eight.
"That's exactly where we want to be," Bemand said at Franklin’s Gardens.
"We've got our two wins, we've got two bonus-point wins, all roads lead to Brighton now, and we want to go and challenge a World Cup contender.
"We knew what we wanted out of today, to get a bonus-point win. At the start of the day, I'd have bit your hand off, just because the magnitude of the importance of what it signifies.
"You can hear it in the other room now [team singing Killeagh], to get into a World Cup quarter-final was something we wanted to achieve and we wanted to achieve it at the first chance."
"Certainly having achieved quarter-final status takes a degree of pressure off"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 31, 2025
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand reacts to the win over Spain and looks ahead to the challenge of facing New Zealand #RWC2025 #rtesport pic.twitter.com/SQ6lY2zPrn
It was a chaotic game which contained 12 tries in total, and Ireland’s cause wasn't helped by losing captain Sam Monaghan to injury just after the 20-minute mark.
The second row hurt her hip after a heavy landing followed a crunching double-tackle.
"She got a bang to a hip, so she was moving a little more gingerly than we would have liked," said Bemand.
"So knowing where we are, and believing in the group that we've got around her, we made the decision to take her off and be proactive about games three to six, should we get there
Defensively, Ireland struggled to contain Spain, who scored five tries in total, and fed off a litany of Irish errors.
But the Ireland head coach bristled at suggestions the team lacked cohesion after he had made seven changes to the side that ran out easy winners against Japan a week ago.
"Hopefully there'll be another big Irish crowd there"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 31, 2025
Dannah O'Brien scored Ireland's first try against Spain today and has been talking about the pros and cons from the overall display and the next assignment against New Zealand #RWC2025 #rtesport pic.twitter.com/HuOMHKj7uf
"We've just won a bonus point, a bonus-point try, we're in a quarter final. I'm going to say we've got that right [correct]. Everything's fixable," he said.
"I actually credit Spain. Culturally, I think they've been an improving nation over the last two years.
"We played them two years ago, in WXV3, we were 10-0 down at half-time, managed to come back and win that. So we knew they were going to be going to be dogged and resilient.
"I think we controlled it early and well, and some of the kicking in the first half was sublime, in the corners and just keeping pressure on the Spanish.
"They're a good team, Spain. We'd have good moments, good exits, and give them an entry back so it felt like a very flip-flop game by the end of it, where we'd get out, we'd give away a penalty, we're back in and we're defending 10 minutes of pick and go.
"So we'll look hard at that, about how we can stop it and what we need to do."
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