‘I Feel There’s Only More To Come’ – Bemand

Scott Bemand cut a satisfied figure after Ireland ended the Guinness Women’s Six Nations with three convincing home wins. However, the potential within the youngest squad in the 2026 Championship means there is a still a huge amount of room for improvement.

It was a job well done as Bemand’s side completed their campaign with a dominant 54-5 victory over Scotland. The Green Wave made a massive splash in Ballsbridge, with the first standalone Women’s international to be held at the Aviva Stadium drawing a record home crowd of 31,294.

The opening 40 minutes were all about Ireland’s swarming attack, as their combination of pace and power served up seven tries – with an average of 4.7 points from 10 attacking 22-metre entries – and a total of seven line breaks, 32 defenders beaten, and over 400 metres made from 102 ball carries.

Leading 47-0 at half-time, the girls in green could only add a second Brittany Hogan try as they failed to capitalise on some scoring chances either side of the hour mark. That will be one of the lessons they will take forward into the inaugural WXV Global Series during the autumn international window.

“First half, how good the girls can be,” said Bemand, speaking in the aftermath of the ‘Super Sunday’ clash. “I thought they took everything that we’ve been working on over a period of time, and put it into a space.

“People look at the pick-and-go scores, and look, they’re a product of some unbelievable backs play, to get you on the front foot. Carry, collisions, a little bit of offloading, gets you to that point, gets you 95 metres up the pitch.

“To have that sort of sense of inevitability of scoring is where we want to move the group to. We knew we needed that, it was one of the reflections from the World Cup.

“When you come up against the best teams, once you get there, you need to be able to take your points. Certainly that first half, I thought they were unbelievable at executing the pressure they built.

“As ever, there’s bit to learn, isn’t there? The second half we weathered a storm. Scotland came out with a sort of an emotional, physical response, which is absolutely normal.

“We weathered that and we got ourselves opportunities, and we’ve just got to be a little bit sharper in taking those opportunities. We could have got the scoreboard going again.

“So, it’s like an unbelievable performance without it being perfect. It tees us up well to get more caps into people, to learn some more, grow the game in the summer, to then come back in twelve months’ time and have another crack at this.”

Ireland may have left some scores behind them, most notably when they had three first-half tries disallowed away to France, but they showed increasing amounts of attacking firepower across the five rounds. So much so that they closed out the tournament with a record haul of 25 tries and 163 points.

They scored their most points (12) and tries (2) against England since 2018, doing so in front of the biggest ever Women’s Six Nations attendance of 77,120. They broke their own record a week later, drawing 9,206 fans to Dexcom Stadium as they amassed their largest points and try tallies in a game against Italy.

Following that nine-try 57-20 victory in Galway, Ireland fell short against France in ClermontFerrand despite a strong start, but bounced back with two impressive home wins, making it three bonus point successes in as many years against Wales before their much-anticipated outing at the home of Irish Rugby.

Yesterday afternoon saw them rack up their second biggest Six Nations score on home soil, just behind 2014’s 59-0 defeat of Scotland in Ashbourne. Braces from player-of-the-match Aoife Wafer and Brittany Hogan saw the back row duo finish as the team’s leading try scorers for the 2026 edition with five each.

The girls in green had 10 different try scorers over the course of the Six Nations, evenly split between backs and forwards, but the pack were the bulk suppliers of tries with 16 in all. Bemand blooded four new caps, the most eye-catching of them being Robyn O’Connor with two tries in four starts.

Asked what was the biggest thing he took away from the tournament as a whole, he replied: “We’ve always been quite open and we want to keep the momentum going. We want to keep growing the wave. So, we’ve been able to achieve that both on and off the pitch.

“We’ve got our three home wins, which we haven’t won three games in this competition for a good while. Even predating myself. So, we’re starting to convert some performances into wins.

“Results are massive. Results are everything in this game and we want to give people something to cheer. So, I think we’ve achieved that.

“Getting to play in a stadium such as the Aviva, with 31,000-plus in, I think people leave here today having had something to cheer and feeling part of the wave.

“From what the players have experienced, and the programme has experienced, playing in front of 77,000 people at Twickenham, going to Clermont, which was one of the best rugby experiences in a partisan away sense. And then we follow it up by having a crowd, a 16th player if you will, here at the Aviva.”

The former Harlequins, Leicester Tigers, and Bath scrum-half continued: “We’re becoming so rich in terms of experiences that we’ve been through.

“Next one for us is to get out to those fast starts, and kind of keep them going longer in games. You probably argue this game, Italy, you know, unbelievable performances, but there’s more in them as well.

“So, we’ve got new caps, we’ve got people adding into the on-pitch stuff, we’re growing our wave. I leave here with a sense that there’s only more to come.”

At the forefront of this group with an average age of just 24.38 years is newly-appointed captain Erin King. The 22-year-old back rower is just 12 caps into her 15s international career, but already looks like the perfect leader for Ireland at the start of this new Rugby World Cup cycle.

She was entrusted with the leadership role on her long-awaited return from a serious knee injury, and Bemand has been delighted with how she has responded, supported by a strong leadership group which includes vice-captain Fiona Tuite and young out-half Dannah O’Brien, the director of the back-line.

The squad has continued to evolve following the World Cup, with players like Ellena Perry and Nancy McGillivray making their first Six Nations starts, and Perry and Clíodhna Moloney-MacDonald both enjoying a run of starts in the front row. The 20-year-old O’Connor has done likewise on the left wing.

With O’Connor’s fellow debutants, Eilís Cahill, Katie Whelan, and Niamh Gallagher, also adding to the squad depth, and a hungry Under-21 squad emerging, Bemand feels it has been an ‘ideal’ way to start out on the road to the next World Cup and hopefully being contenders when Australia 2029 rolls around.

“We haven’t backed off momentum, we have been able to keep going after getting better. We talk about closing the gap. You know, if you look at the second half versus England, first half versus France, probably a bit deeper than that into the second half in Clermont, that we’re becoming.

“And now the next thing is to keep growing that and become more. As we do that, we’ll need more experiences in players. I think we’ve probably discovered some sort of superstar captain in Erin, who embodies what we want to become.

“Leads from the front, has passion, she wears it on her sleeve. This is the first time Erin has done this role and I would say, five games in, she’s becoming massively accomplished already.

“So, we’re getting more layers to ourselves. I think we’ve kept momentum going, and in terms of year one of a Word Cup cycle, we’re exactly where we want to be,” he added.