Women’s Six Nations: Ireland coach Scott Bemand hopes to ‘land a few’

Bemand believes his side can be even more competitive against the French this time round.

“We’ve made some advances to our game, we’ve been throwing a reasonable amount at the players, trying to take them forward in terms of learning, bits of our game that we believe we can be successful with in the game against France.

“So, we’d certainly like to fire a few more shots than we did last time.

“There are a bunch of experiences that we’ve been through in last year’s Six Nations and the WXV1 and I think there’s a great group there that can play in a few different ways.”

Bemand believes the strength of Ireland’s replacements will be an important factor in making them competitive at Kingspan Stadium.

“The strength of a squad you can usually see in what firepower you have on the bench and we have firepower on the bench,” he added.

“France are a good team and I think it will come down to that last 20 minutes. So we’re going to need the 23 to perform at the weekend. I have every confidence in our group we’re building nicely, building our depth nicely.

“I expect France to start in their usual manner, they’ll throw everything at it, belt and braces, so we’re expecting them to come out full of confidence, but we know we’re a very hard team to beat and a better team now than we were a year ago.”