IRELAND CO-CAPTAIN Edel McMahon says defeating World Champions New Zealand was an “unbelievable feeling” as her side caused a stunning upset at the WXV1.
A late Erin King try along with a conversion from Danah O’Brien saw Ireland snatch a two-point victory to give them the best possible start at the tournament in Canada.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” McMahon said at a post-match press conference.
“The group had massive belief all week. We believe in what we’re doing, we believe in the connections we have with each other, we believe in the staff. We work really hard off the pitch and even harder on the pitch. For us, that just validates exactly what we’re doing. I couldn’t be more proud of the girls.
“The minute the opportunity came, we knew we deserved to be up with the best and that’s where we want to challenge ourselves. We know we have a World Cup to compete in and this is the platform where we get to show the world that we can.”
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand expressed his pride at the team’s effort, saying that they are “building minutes” with performances like this.
“We always said we want to be a really hard team to play against and we started to believe what we’ve been doing behind the scenes more and more when we were in it on 60 minutes.
“We put them in the positions we wanted to and it’s pretty reflective of where we put our work. We’re getting there to the next step.”
Flanker Aoife Wafer has been impressing for her Ireland since making her breakthrough to the senior squad in 2022. She dazzled again against New Zealand last night, picking up two tries in a Player Of The Match display. Replacement Erin King also left a considerable mark on proceedings with a brace of tries after her introduction.
“We’ve got two super stars there coming through but neither one can do it on their own,” Bemand replied when asked about the pair.
“Tricky’s [McMahon] leadership and the line speed from Niamh O’Dowd is incredible. It looks slightly different to the men’s game but she. There’s performances across the board out there so not singling people out but there’s a couple of special players coming through and the rest of the group has given them a platform to perform.”
Ireland were trailing New Zealand by five points before King provided that 79th-minute try which ultimately secured the victory for Ireland.
“We knew what we needed to do,” said Bemand about Ireland’s final surge for the win. “We had confidence that the girls would put themselves in the right area of the pitch again to ask the right questions. It’s always a physical game against New Zealand. We’re building something and we’ll probably need a few more Tests in that and we’ve got to try keep being consistent with it and try to grow it.”
You can watch the full press conference here
