Women’s Six Nations: Ireland v England Musgrave Park, Saturday, 2.15 (Live on RTÉ 2 & BBC2)
The Ireland players need to ignore the white noise, on and off the pitch, a hotch-potch of scaremongering, scapegoating and solicitous concern and instead focus on the tangible in producing their best performance of the campaign irrespective of the outcome.
At face value this Ireland squad is not good enough to beat England. Simon Middleton’s charges are bigger, stronger, faster, technically more proficient, with a deeper reservoir of talent, experience and rugby specific smarts, or rugby IQ to use the modern buzz phrase.
England’s superior skill sets allow them to play the game at a higher intensity with greater variety and subtlety to their patterns, while simultaneously possessing the capacity to be direct, using brute force to pummel the opposition defence until it capitulates or turn it into a colander, given the number of holes punched. They’ve won their last 22 Six Nations matches and thumped everyone to date in the present campaign.
Ireland currently don’t have the personnel, the game or the basic rugby tools to damage England to the extent that they can win the match. This is not a new phenomenon. In the last three Six Nations matches between the teams – they did not play against one another in an altered tournament structure in 2021 – Ireland have scored seven points while conceding a whopping 147.
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In the five most recent Six Nations matches between the countries Ireland have managed three tries while England have run in 34. This included a series of tournaments in which Ireland finished runners-up in 2017 with four wins from five, and finished third and fourth in two others; England have been their nemesis for quite some time.
It’s seven years ago, 2016, that an Ireland side, under the coaching auspices of the late Tom Tierney threatened to beat the Red Roses; they lost 13-9 with current backs coach Niamh Briggs kicking three penalties.
The plight of the current team facing a very tough assignment is relatively commonplace when taking into consideration matches between the countries of late. What’s making some observers anxious or queasy is that England reside at the summit of European rugby while their opponents are stuck in the foothills.
Ireland’s performances in the Six Nations to date have thrown up weaknesses that cannot and will not be successfully addressed in the time frame available during the tournament. And not by the personnel available, or even if they were supplemented by the two or three players that have been turned into cause celebres or martyrs by some in their absence.
Significant development in Ireland’s general play, game management, set piece, back play, both in orientation and cutting edge, kicking game, tackling and defending will take time to reach standards sufficient to consistently trouble the opposition at elite level. Striking a balance between style and substance to derive maximum benefit from both is still a little way off on the evidence so far.
There have been incremental improvements made in the tournament so far though to be fair to Greg McWilliams, his coaching team and the players. He said: “The group here can’t control the outside, it is about our own performance and being honest with each other, transparent, clear with each other about what we need to do to get better.
“Once the players are owning that and you have a group working hard you will get there. We are at a point now in our time where we have come off the back of three defeats and that’s the beauty of sport, sometimes you have good moments and sometimes it doesn’t go your way. We will keep fighting. Each week we are seeing improvements. That’s something I [am] very, very happy with.”
The Ireland players have spoken of the horror and dismay at discovering the vitriol on social media in belittling their performances. Twitter and its social media siblings rarely comfort the beleaguered.
There has been minimal if any criticism of the players by supporters and the media in general, recognising that a young and inexperienced team have been diligent in their application. After all, what more can a player do than their best?
That’s the challenge for the Irish players in Cork on Saturday, to be the premier version, individually and collectively, and let the cards fall where they may. Plenty of Irish teams of all persuasions have finished on the rough side of a scoreboard. That shouldn’t define them or their efforts.
Anyway, it’s sport, strange things happen!
IRELAND: L Delany (Sale Sharks); A Doyle (Railway Union), A Dalton (Old Belvedere), Vicky Irwin (Sale Sharks), N Behan (Blackrock College); D O’Brien (Old Belvedere), M Scuffil-McCabe (Railway Union); L Djougang (Old Belvedere), N Jones (Gloucester-Hartpury), C Haney (Blackrock College); N Fryday (Exeter Chiefs), S Monaghan (Gloucester-Hartpury); B Hogan (Old Belvedere), Grace Moore (Saracens), Deirbhile Nic a Bháird (Old Belvedere).
Replacements: C Nielson (Exeter Chiefs), S McGrath (Cooke), K Buggy (Gloucester-Hartpury), H O’Connor (Blackrock), Jo Brown (Worcester Warriors), Nicole Cronin (UL Bohemian), Anna McGann (Railway Union), Méabh Deely (Blackrock College).
ENGLAND: E Kildunne (Harlequins); A Dow (Harlequins), L Tuima (Harlequins), T Tatyana Heard (Gloucester-Hartpury), C MacDonald (Exeter Chiefs); H Aitchison (Saracens), N Hunt (Gloucester-Hartpury); H Botterman (Saracens), C Powell (Gloucester-Hartpury), M Muir (Gloucester-Hartpury); Z Aldcroft (Gloucester-Hartpury), S Beckett (Gloucester-Hartpury); S Kabeya (Loughborough Lightning), M Packer (Saracens, capt), A Matthews (Gloucester-Hartpury).
Replacements: L Davies (Bristol Bears), M Carson (Saracens), S Bern (Bristol Bears), D Burns (Bristol Bears), M Talling (Loughborough Lightning), L Packer (Harlequins), A Reed (Bristol Bears), H Rowland Loughborough Lightning).
