Ireland women thrive with unstructured approach

By Daire Walsh

Following the endless hours of preparatory work produced behind the scenes, Ireland women’s scrum-half Kathryn Dane was thrilled to see it all come together in last weekend’s Six Nations opener against Scotland at Donnybrook.

Using last November’s Test defeat at the hands of Wales as a motivating factor, Adam Griggs’ charges dug deep to secure an 18-14 victory over their Celtic counterparts.

“We’ve worked so hard since the last Six Nations and even working through the Autumn Series there. Having that loss against Wales really gave us the kick up the ass to work hard over Christmas,” Dane explained.

“We’re delighted that this win against Scotland sets the tone now for the rest of the campaign. We’re just going to keep going into Wales now next week.”

Before Philip Doyle’s visitors rallied, Ireland had created a 13-0 platform in the first-quarter.

The free-flowing, expansive style on display in this period was, by and large, the culmination of the squad’s principles being put into practice. The target now is for Dane and her team-mates to deliver it on a more consistent basis.

“We’ve been really focusing on unstructured rugby in our training sessions and we were just told to go out there and express ourselves. We did play with such flair in the first 15 minutes. Delighted about that, but hopefully next week we can turn that 15 minutes into 60 minutes, 70 minutes and really put teams under pressure.”

Despite falling to a 19-15 home defeat at the hands of Italy on their first day out, Wales are expected to pose a formidable challenge when the two sides meet in Donnybrook this Sunday (kick-off 1pm).

Before claiming victory in that November showdown, the Welsh had a bonus-point success over Adam Griggs’ charges in the final round of last year’s Six Nations.