NEVE JONES TRACES her love of defensive work right back to her early days playing rugby.

The hard-hitting hooker regularly tops the tackle charts for Ireland, missing none of her 23 tackles as she led the way once again in last weekend’s opening round Six Nations defeat to France.

It was a typically busy shift for the Ulster player, who was the top tackler in last year’s Six Nations – missing just two of her 92 tackles.

“Playing mini rugby I was the only girl and probably the smallest on the pitch, but it’s nothing that’s ever fazed me,” says Jones.

I remember my Dad taking me out to the garden and teaching me how to tackle and I think that it set me in good stead throughout all of my rugby career.

“I’ve got to be very thankful for that, from the first day that he took me out to teach me to tackle and playing mini rugby. I didn’t get the ball very often so I thought I’d just crack on with the defence, and I’d say it’s probably quite similar with my game at the minute.”

Defence has long been a strong point of Jones’ game and is something the Ireland squad have been placing a big focus on recently as they get familiar with Declan Danaher’s defensive system.

Former London Irish player and coach Danaher joined the Ireland set-up earlier this year and has already made a big impact on the group, with Ireland’s defensive work the highlight of their performance against France last weekend.

On Sunday Ireland welcome Italy to the RDS [KO 3pm, RTÉ] and their goal this week is to marry that defensive grit with a more productive attacking game as they aim to record a first Six Nations win since April 2022.

Neve Jones speaking to the media in Abbotstown earlier this week. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO

“I think defence is a huge part of the game regardless of who you’re playing and the same with attack, you’re going to have the ball, you’re not going to have the ball.

“You’re going to have to be able to switch from one to the other pretty quickly. Both are probably equal and probably off the back of having a big defensive set this week we’re probably looking more at attack because we know what we can do in defence.

“Dec’s come in and given us a really great system, we’ve all really bought into it. It’s just flipping the switch a bit to be like, well, this is what we can do really good so how can we make our attack better via having such good defence.”

Ireland’s hopes of climbing up the table this year are strongly boosted by the fact the squad are now 12 months further down the line from the introduction of full-time contracts.

Against France, the players looked fitter and stronger than they did during last year’s championship, and Jones says the players are feeling the benefits of that step into professionalism.

I think having that full-time kind of job has been really good, especially for recovery, it’s a huge part of the game.

“You’re not working and training at the same time. You can focus on one thing, you’ve got time for your analysis. I think it’s really huge for the game, it’s just growing and growing and it’s exactly where we need to be going.

“The girls have gotten bigger, stronger, faster, it’s just fantastic to see to come back and see that they have gone leaps and bounds since we left after WXV and it’s just pushing us on in the game to grow and be better and more of a challenge for everyone that’s involved.

“You’re competing for a jersey week in and week out and that’s a good environment to be part of.”