IT MIGHT SEEM hard to believe given the impact she has already made in the Ireland jersey, but tomorrow’s game against France at Kingspan Stadium will be Erin King’s first in the Women’s Six Nations Championship.

After making her international 15s bow in a 14 September Test win over Australia in Belfast – a few weeks on from representing the 7s side at the Summer Olympics in Paris – King truly announced herself by grabbing a brace of tries off the bench when Ireland kick-started their WXV 1 campaign in Canada with a shock victory over New Zealand.

She went on to start Ireland’s remaining games in the tournament against Canada and the USA – claiming her third try in the 15s code during the latter.

Her performances in WXV 1 helped her to earn the Women’s 15s Breakthrough Player of the Year prize at the World Rugby Awards last November and having selected her at openside flanker for France’s visit to Belfast this weekend, Ireland women’s head coach Scott Bemand is confident she can carry her excellent form into 2025.

“She’s a wonderful human, she’s a fantastic player. There is obviously some of the rawness when we took to the field in WXV 1 that we’ve been able to do a little bit more with. Her set-piece acumen is growing daily,” Bemand said.

“Her ability to make good decisions around breakdown. What to leave and what not to. Where to carry, what lines to take. She has been getting better and better over the time that we spent together. I’m really excited and I think hopefully the Irish public should be really excited to see what she can do.”

Throughout last year’s Six Nations campaign, Sam Monaghan and Edel McMahon operated as co-captains of the Irish team. While this duo only started together in two of the five games that their side played in the 2024 Championship, at least one of them was included in the first 15 for each of those encounters.

Yet this won’t be the case in Belfast tomorrow as Monaghan is still working her way back from a serious knee injury and McMahon has to be content with a spot amongst the replacements as part of a 6/2 bench split.

Although Bemand confirmed McMahon will assume captaincy duties upon her expected introduction to the field of play, it is Amee-Leigh Costigan (nee Murphy Crowe) who has been chosen to lead Ireland out from the start. Also a star of the 7s circuit for many years, Tipperary native Costigan is set to pick up her 14th cap in the 15s game on the left-wing.

“Amee-Leigh, ever since coming back in from the Sevens programme, has been an absolute role model leader in this environment. She’s scored a lot of tries on the Sevens circuit, has got a massive name for herself, but what I’ve seen is somebody that is absolutely hungry to be better as a player in every facet of the game.

“There’s a few discussions about being a winger and a captain and I’m delighted to see France have followed suit and named [Marine] Menager as one of their captains. We’ve got a strong leadership group. Neve Jones will have a role to play in terms of speaking to the referee and when Tricky [McMahon] comes on, she’ll take the captaincy and be the voice to the referee.”

In advance of last year’s 2024 Six Nations (his first Championship as head coach of the side), Bemand was targeting a top-three finish and this was achieved despite them recording just two wins from five games played.

This helped to secure qualification for the aforementioned WXV 1 tournament in Canada and the upcoming Rugby World Cup in England. This undoubtedly represented a step in the right direction and finishing second in the top-tier of the WXV has certainly raised expectations coming into 2025.

England, who have won the Women’s Six Nations for the past six seasons, and France remain the dominant forces in the tournament, and Bemand said that closing the gap to these teams is something Ireland will be actively targeting in the coming weeks.

“We’re targeting trying to close that gap on the top-two, we want to become World Cup contenders. At some point, we’ve got to take some chunks out of a Tier 1 nation and for us that’s doing something against a France or an England,” Bemand added.

“I love playing the French. They’ve done an incredible job for the women’s game over in France. Now we get a chance to show our people over in Ireland what we can do. We want to do something just to shake up that top-two piece.”

Daire Walsh