Despite several signs of encouragement in an opening-round defeat to France on Saturday in the Six Nations Championship, Ireland women’s head coach Scott Bemand acknowledged there are areas his side can improve upon ahead of Italy’s forthcoming visit to the RDS.

While a French side that are currently ranked third in the world ultimately emerged with a bonus-point triumph, stout and diligent Irish defence frustrated them for large stretches of the play at Stade Marie-Marvingt.

Although attacking opportunities in the Le Mans venue were limited for the visitors, Bemand’s determined charges did grab tries through Aoife Wafer and Aoife Dalton in the closing moments of the action. Nevertheless, this Irish team remains a work in progress and Bemand explained that some fine tuning is needed ahead of their duel with the Italians in Dublin this Sunday.

“I think there are probably a few areas in the game that we’ll go after [against Italy], but France are a World Cup-contending side. I think defensively we can still put more pressure on teams,” Bemand admitted after Saturday’s game.

“We probably gave them a little too much respect to start with, which meant we were probably defending in the wrong areas of the pitch that we want to be defending in. There’s a kicking piece that we’re going to keep going after and what kicking pressure looks like.

“I think our attack game, once we got into the right areas of the pitch, there’s a little bit of fine tuning there. There’s line-outs really that we fancy ourselves more often than not to be winning, which lets you then build your pressure up the pitch.

“There’ll be a couple of fix-ups around the breakdown as well, but we knew coming into this competition that we would have to keep learning and growing on the move. Coming away to France is always a big ask, but it gives us an opportunity now to look into it in a bit of detail, which lets us attack an Italy side next week.”

Even though a third-minute try from French scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus suggested it was going to be a tough day at the office for Ireland – who finished bottom of last year’s Championship with five straight losses – a number of factors contributed to them initially staying within touching distance of the hosts.

In addition to their opponents experiencing some unexpected difficulties with their line-out, a series of dominant tackles in defence and the strong kicking game of fly-half Nicole Fowley helped Ireland to stifle their French counterparts either side of the first-quarter mark.

Featuring in the Six Nations for the first time since 2019, Sligo native Fowley also knocked over a 40-metre penalty on 14 minutes to leave Ireland just four points adrift. Yet France maintained a potent attacking threat and a second try by flying winger Marine Menager in the 32nd minute preceded Lina Queyroi’s five point haul off the kicking tee.

This left Ireland 17-3 in arrears at the interval and following additional tries from powerful lock Madoussou Fall and hooker Agathe Sochat, France had wrapped up a bonus point victory by the 62nd minute.

However, instead of allowing their heads to drop inside the final-quarter, Ireland admirably persisted with their challenge.

The likes of Hannah O’Connor and Brittany Hogan were leading their committed charge as the visitors finally established a consistent foothold inside the French ‘22’. They eventually got a just reward for their efforts in the 71st minute when blindside flanker Wafer (who turns 21 today) crashed over underneath a slew of bodies for her maiden international try.

Elisa Riffonneau immediately fired back for France at the opposite end, but Ireland finished the game on a positive note when Dalton capitalised on a defensive error for a 77th minute finish that was supplemented by Dannah O’Brien’s second conversion off the bench.

In the absence of her fellow co-captain Sam Monaghan through injury, Clare woman Edel McMahon led out the Irish side in a solo capacity. There was a balmy atmosphere in Le Mans for Saturday’s game and with the RDS Arena capable of hosting 18,500 spectators for sporting events, she is hopeful that Irish fans will come out in their droves this weekend.

“I think the support from home has already spoken volumes. Obviously we have a lot of family that travelled today and I believe some oldies from the past that played rugby for Ireland came along as well. Having supporters like that is massive, people who played the game are back on that journey with us,” McMahon said.

“We had a massive amount of messages from home. I think we had quite a lot of support, especially coming here to France, so I really can’t wait to see the support when they come out in the RDS for us against Italy next week.”

Scorers for France: Tries – P Bourdon Sansus, M Menager, M Fall, A Sochat, E Riffonneau. Pens – L Queyroi. Cons – L Queyroi (4), M Bourgeois.

Scorers for Ireland: Tries – A Wafer, A Dalton. Pens – N Fowley. Cons – D O’Brien (2).

FRANCE: E Boulard; K Arbey, N Konde, G Vernier, M Menager; L Queyroi, P Bourdon Sansus; A Deshaye, A Sochat, A Khalfaoui; M Feleu, M Fall; C Escudero, G Hermet, R Menager.

Replacements: M Bourgeois for M Menager (44), E Gros for Fall (51), A Mwayembe for Deshaye (56), A Chambon for Bourdon Sansus (61), E Riffonneau for Sochat, C Joyeux for Khalfaoui (both 65), K Zago for Feleu (67), L Tuy for Queyroi (72).

IRELAND: L Delany; K Corrigan, E Higgins, A Dalton, B Parsons; N Fowley, A Reilly; L Djougang, N Jones, C Haney; D Wall, H O’Connor; A Wafer, E McMahon, B Hogan.

Replacements: D O’Brien for Fowley (h-t), G Moore for McMahon (51), F Tuite for Wall (56), M Scuffil-McCabe for Reilly, S McGrath for Haney (both 63), M Deely for Corrigan (67), N O’Dowd for Djougang, S Delaney for Jones (both 77).

Referee: K Roche (USA).