Reilly Sees Room For Improvement

Coming up against reigning RBS Women’s 6 Nations champions England in only her third cap was a baptism of fire for Marie Louise Reilly. But last Sunday’s encounter in Esher has undoubtedly whetted the talented Ireland lock’s appetite for more.

Despite the 22-5 defeat, Marie Louise Reilly enjoyed the experience of testing herself against one of the top international sides in Women’s rugby.

It was unfortunate to lose a match but we were in the game for 80
minutes and that will be a huge benefit in the future. It will be
something to learn from. England are obviously a vastly experienced
team. It was my third cap and it was great to come up against some of
the best in the world so hopefully we’ll improve from here on in.
The initial speed of the game took us a while to settle into it and
when you make a mistake against the likes of England they punish any
mistake you make. Going forward we will have to look to improve on
that.
We will be thinking about the scrum as we head into the next two
games. We’re still a developing side and there are a lot of new caps
in the team. I think there were at least 4 or 5 new players in this
match. The set piece is something that we need to build on and work
on. The lineout is something we can improve on again, especially
defensively.
The maul is something we worked on really hard in the lead up to the 6
Nations and we scored a similar try against Italy. It’s something that
we’ve worked hard on and hopefully it’s something that we can use as a
tool going forward.
The conditions did hamper our forward play today, especially in the
scrum as it was difficult to get your a grip. England have a heavier
pack and if they got the initial push on we did find ourselves sliding
back. But overall the conditions didn’t cut up too badly and the
kicking game helped. There was good kicking from both sides.
I spoke to the senior players Fiona Coghlan and Tania Rosser before
the game and they said that the English team bring a certain tenacity
to the game and they like to have a bit of banter on the pitch and a
bit of chat. We entered into this too. As I’m one of the bigger girls
on the team, I have to be there for the other girls and get into the
mix when things go on. But to be honest it was really just handbags.