A rejuvenated Irish team embark upon the 2025 Women’s Six Nations when hosting France in the Kingspan Stadium on Saturday in an altogether better state both mentally and physically than for the corresponding game a year ago.
Although France won that game 38-17 in Le Havre, a couple of tries in the final 10 minutes by Aoife Wafer and Aoife Dalton provided the first shoots of an upturn in fortunes. And although defeat followed in round two at home to Italy, since then Ireland have won five of their ensuing seven games, securing third place and qualification for both the WXV Tier 1 in Vancouver, where they beat New Zealand the USA, as well as the World Cup in England next autumn.
Despite breaking her leg for a second time in four months in December, Beibhinn Parsons is on course to return for Ireland’s second game against Italy in Parma or, perhaps more realistically, their round three tie against England in Cork on April 12th.
Are Ireland only Europe’s third best team?
“She’s on the pitch in and out at the moment,” said assistant coach Hugh Hogan after the squad’s training session on Tuesday. “She’s probably not fit for selection just yet but we do expect her to be fully fit during the tournament.
James Abankwah catches Hallgrímsson’s eye, and Ireland rugby team ‘far from a crisis’
Improved Ireland rearing to go up against France in tough Six Nations start
Gordon D’Arcy: Ideal opportunity for Ireland to take stock and move forward with clarity
Owen Doyle: Italy had a great chance to beat Ireland but they hit the self-destruct button
“I couldn’t give you an exact date yet but she’s more and more involved in skills and ‘walk throughs’, so she’s having a growing presence in the team at the moment.”
It also transpires that Stacey Flood, whose smooth transition to fullback has been another feature of the team’s new direction, required an operation after suffering an ankle injury in a Celtic Challenge game six weeks ago. As with Parsons, she appears to have made a swift recovery and looks likely to play against France.
“She’s fully fit at the moment,” said Hogan. “That’s a huge positive. She had an unfortunate injury in a Celtic Challenge but huge credit to our medical staff and to Stacey herself. They’ve worked incredibly hard to give her the opportunity now, which is awesome.
“Cliodhna Moloney picked up a calf injury playing in the PWR [Premiership Women’s Rugby] a number of weeks ago; but she’s just coming back to full fitness now. There are another one or two who weren’t necessarily 100 per cent a few weeks ago and they’ve come back into the reckoning so it’s really positive,” said Hogan, who added they are “fortunate to be in a good place”.
Sam Monaghan is also with the squad, although she will remain sidelined for this Six Nations after missing the victory over Australia in the IRFU’s 150th anniversary match and the WXV1 due to the serious knee injury she suffered playing for Gloucester-Hartpury last June.
“She came across a few weeks ago to really focus on her rehab,” said Hogan. “The target for her at the moment is to get her back to full fitness pre the World Cup camps and give her the best opportunity to have a great summer leading into the tournament next autumn.”
Ireland outperformed France in Vancouver, where the French beat the USA and lost to Canada before going down heavily to New Zealand. Hogan evidently expects a stronger French team in this Six Nations.
France have dominated this fixture and have won the last seven meetings.
“France is France, isn’t it? They’re a strong team and I think when you look at the history of the competition they are there or thereabouts. France and England have been the standard-bearers for a period of time. We’re under no illusions that it’ll be an easy game.
“I know they were disappointed with the results they had in the autumn and in their own words they have reviewed hard, so we expect a bit of a bounce in their step when they come to Belfast on Saturday.”
Hogan described the uniqueness of the threat France pose, which they have tried to prepare for by overloading the team with 18 opponents, be it in defensive or attacking scenarios.
“They’re quite a French team, and in that I say they’re very direct and run through their 9. So, [Pauline] Bourdon Sansus is an extremely good player, quite a typical French 9. She can kick, run – the little general as you would say. So, not necessarily what we would experience in the Celtic Challenge scenario. You have to be quite mindful of her.
“They’ve got some world-class athletes, they’ve got some bigger players, a good offloading game. Quintessentially French would be the shortstop answer but I think they’ve got threats across the pitch, probably more so than any of the other nations.
“They could hurt you through football, through a kicking game, playing through you and playing around you, offloading game with momentum. So, I think there’s probably a few layers that we have to be wary of there.”
