Ireland head coach Scott Bemand says his side will “keep their feet on the ground” after taking their first win of the 2024 Six Nations by beating Wales.
The Irish scored five tries in a 36-5 bonus-point victory in Cork.
“I’m delighted for the girls that their hard work has been rewarded and they were able to convert some of our pressure into points,” said Bemand.
“Hopefully they start to believe in how we train and what it can lead to and keep building the confidence bank.”
Ireland were the dominant side throughout Saturday’s encounter at Virgin Media Park, scoring three tries in the first half and two in the second to secure their victory by a convincing margin.
Bemand says there is plenty of room for improvement though ahead of next weekend’s meeting with England at Twickenham.
“I think we’ll look back on that game and see that there were still plenty of points that we left out there so we’re an honest group and we’ll actually go and review that pretty hard,” reflected the Ireland coach.
“It’s a great result but we’ll keep our feet on the ground and keep working hard. Next week is another opportunity for us to put on another good performance and show the Irish public what we are about.”
‘Performance has been coming’
Flanker Aoife Wafer scored one of her side’s tries and was named player of the match for her performance.
“This has been coming for this group for a long time now, the performance we have put in and the hard work behind the scenes. It’s just so special,” said Wafer.
“We were hurting after the Italy game. We knew we left something behind us and to put in the work on the training paddock and show that we deserve to be here and deserve this win, it’s a good one.
“We’ve had belief that we can get results and in the people that we have in the squad and in our coaches. We know we have world-class players in our squad so it’s just about executing week in, week out.”
Ireland co-captain reclaimed her place in the starting XV for the match with Wales.
“We were so confident that if we stuck to our process the result would look after itself and I think today was a reflection on that,” she said.
“I still think there are things we need to tidy up, we weren’t perfect, but we’ll chase that and bring it into next week.”
