THE IRELAND WOMEN’S team are taking small, incremental steps forward in terms of their progression, but two games into their Six Nations campaign there is still very much a sense this group has work to do if they are to climb the championship table.

Against France in week one, Ireland delivered an encouraging defensive display but still leaked some soft tries in Le Mans, where their lineout work also let them down. 

Things were better against Italy at the RDS yesterday as the home side delivering on their ambition to play with more width and ambition. Time and again, Scott Bemand’s side moved the ball to the wide channels and found some joy, while they also generated good momentum through their ball-carrying forwards, where Aoife Wafer and Sam Monaghan were to the fore.

Yet for all their efforts, Ireland were undone by poor handling and decision making throughout, falling to a 27-21 defeat against an Italian side who were much more clinical when opportunites came their way.

Ireland finished the game with 27 handling errors and 17 turnovers conceded, numbers which need to drop drastically when Wales come to Cork on 13 April.

“If you look at time spent in the right area of the pitch and opportunities created, there’s little bits of shape and thing we can tidy up on,” said head coach Scott Bemand.

“The Italians don’t generally give you many line breaks, so you take momentum. So, the girls have clearly moved that on in the week. They looked like they had more attacking prowess with ball in hand.

The bit you’ve got to get used to now is in Test match rugby, nobody gives you anything and you’ve got to really focus on that possession and if it’s a 50/50, you’ve got to be clinical with your decision making, your breakdown work, your ball presentation.

“So there’s a few bits for us to go after. I think we moved it forward.”

Ireland dominated the possession and territory across the early stages but their only reward was an early penalty try – Italy coming back to strike twice and turn the game on it’s head to take a 15-7 lead into the half-time break.

Even at that early stage, it felt as though Ireland might live to rue their inability to convert that early dominance into more points on the scoreboard.

“I think when you start games like that with that sort of momentum, I’ve seen this in the past, It’s almost like you’re a runaway train and to be fair to the Italians, they kept the integrity in their line so actually what we needed to do was get some scores in that point.

“You’re putting all the effort in, you’re getting all the go-forward. The only thing we didn’t do was get the ball over the line. It sounds simple but essentially that’s what we need to do and there’s a confidence piece to that.

Beibhinn Parsons makes a break. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO

“When we get the opportunities, do you keep going for forward momentum or do you release your edge? And if you release your edge you’ve got to be clinical so it’s that balance, that confidence, that Test-match pressure where the very least you have to do is stretch teams but you’ve got to finish in possession to get up and go again.” 

With a record attendance present at the RDS, it felt like a golden opportunity for Ireland to put a win to their name, having lost all five Six Nations outings last season.

Still, Bemand was adamant he sees signs of progression across a group of players he inherited from Greg McWilliams last year.

“Absolutely. We’re going after the positive stuff because there’s stuff out there where we want to keep growing in our game.

“We’re an honest group. We’ll look hard at that and see what, why and how we didn’t score.

“The story doesn’t finish here. We have two games back in Ireland and our challenge now is to learn faster than anybody else. 

“The group is positive. The group has had a bit of a setback today but it’s not defining of a Six Nations.

“I back our girls to come out, work hard, get looking forward to the next game and come and produce a performance that hopefully we can convert into a winning performance.”