Doyle and Wall hoping to tap into Musgrave Park atmosphere as France roll into town
With the dust starting to settle from Ireland’s disappointing opening to the Women’s Six Nations against Wales, Munster duo Dorothy Wall and Aoife Doyle find themselves in an upbeat mood for France’s second round visit to Musgrave Park this Saturday.
Following a comprehensive 31-5 defeat to the Welsh in Cardiff last weekend, Ireland will be hoping for a much better performance in the first of two games to take place at the Cork venue in this year’s Championship.
A native of Fethard in Tipperary, Wall is looking forward to playing in front of her family and friends at a familiar stomping ground.
“You always go out to play your best obviously, but the two of us [herself and Doyle] are from Munster and our whole family will be there. You don’t have the commute, they’re coming to your house per se. It definitely is an added boost.
“We’re very much looking forward to the French game and all guns blazing towards it for us,” Wall remarked at a press conference held at the IRFU’s High Performance Centre on Tuesday.
While Ireland also played at the RDS in Dublin and Belfast’s Kingspan Stadium over the course of last year’s Six Nations, their most impressive display was a round three triumph over Italy in Musgrave on April 10.
Doyle (the only survivor in the current set-up from the successful Six Nations campaign of 2015) appeared as a 59th-minute replacement for Beibhinn Parsons in that contest as Greg McWilliams’ charges recorded a 29-8 bonus point victory.
Both herself and Wall also played earlier this year for Munster at Musgrave as they completed back-to-back Women’s Interprovincial Championships under the guidance of Niamh Briggs, who is also an assistant coach with the international side.
“We have great memories in Musgrave Park. We’ve great memories last year from the Six Nations and as Doro mentioned, we’re two Munster heads. It does hold good memories for us,” the Limerick woman acknowledged.
“Just having the home crowd there, having our family there, we’re relying a lot on the public support and we know we do have a lot of supporters out there. They’re quite positive around our squad. We’re hoping people come out in force and really get behind us this weekend.”
While France were made to work for their 22-12 win over Italy in Parma last Sunday – the game was very much up for grabs until French winger Caroline Boujard grabbed a 75th minute converted try – Les Bleus will be firm favourites to come out on top of their duel with Ireland on the Leeside. They came into the 2023 Six Nations on the back of claiming third spot for the seventh time in their history at last year’s delayed World Cup finals in New Zealand, but Wall assured Irish supporters that she and her team-mates intend to leave everything out on the field this weekend.
“They’re clinical. They’re fit, they’re strong, they’re well versed. You saw that at the match at the weekend. We were studying their set-piece there this morning and we went out to our session with specifics on what we want to do this weekend.
“We know that they’re a big force, but we’re not the fighting Irish for no reason. We truly intend to bring that,” Wall added.