Scaysbrook: We Took Good Confidence From Galway Performance

This is Scaysbrook’s first Guinness Women’s Six Nations Championship with the Ireland squad, the former Bath and Exeter Chiefs flanker having come on board as defence coach following last year’s tournament, taking over from Hugh Hogan.

His influence could be seen during that quarter-final clash in Exeter, where Ireland conceded just four penalties in defence compared to France’s 13. Five of the forwards reached double figures for tackles made that day, led by front rowers Neve Jones and Linda Djougang with 25 between them.

Crucially, a 13-point half-time lead was not enough in the end, as the les Bleues crossed from their only two attacking 22-metre entries to win by five points. It was a gut-wrenching defeat, but just like their losing start to this year’s Six Nations, Ireland are not going to let it define their campaign.

Speaking ahead of Saturday night’s duel with the French in Clermont, Scaysbrook said: “We’ve obviously all got reasonably good memories, and we remember what happened last time against France.

“But you know, also by the same token, it’s the next game for us and we’re looking to grow our game and grow the team and get better each week.

“So, as much as yes, we’re looking forward to it, it’s also our next opportunity to grow as a team and get better.”

Ireland come into the third round fixture in fine fettle, buoyed by last week’s 57-20 win over Italy in front of a record crowd at Dexcom Stadium. The nine-try performance moved them up to third in the table, keeping them five points behind France who were 38-7 winners away to Wales.

There was much to admire about the Irish display, particularly a free-flowing first half during which Galway’s own Béibhinn Parsons helped herself to a hat-trick. The strong-carrying Aoife Wafer was the pick of the forwards, and the group came through with a clean bill of health.

It means they will take a good deal of momentum with them to the capital of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, but there is also the realisation that they will need to be better again to overcome the world’s fourth-ranked team, who have conceded just two tries in their first two matches.

Indeed, France (92%) and Ireland (88%) boast the best tackle success rates so far in the 2026 Championship, and winger Parsons will certainly be on the prowl for more tries as the tournament’s joint-second top try scorer, and with the most defenders beaten (11) after the opening two rounds.

“There was a confidence about the team, I think, because of the way they trained and the way they built over the last couple of weeks,” admitted Scaysbrook, reflecting on the bonus point victory over Italy.

“It was a genuine confidence that they can take into games, and yeah, they’re definitely building into big performances. We can take good confidence from how we performed in Galway, and that was the big thing, the big performance part of it.

“Off the back of the performance obviously comes lots of tries. But when we finished, there’s still areas of our game that we want to grow from that game as well, and things we’ve learnt from the game that hopefully we’ll get better at this week.

“We’re becoming pretty clear on how we want to play but just, you know, nailing that down and making sure that every time we create opportunities, we take them.

“And then, as with the other end of the pitch, we want to be looking at making sure we can stop teams, so that’s an important area of growth as well. Both ends of the pitch.”

This Ireland squad may boast a spine of seasoned players, including the likes of Djougang who won her 50th cap at the World Cup, and Clíodhna Moloney-MacDonald who reached the half-century mark against England two weeks ago, but there is a young group becoming more experienced and gelled with each camp together.

As well as bringing in new caps Eilís Cahill, Katie Whelan, and Robyn O’Connor, who enjoyed a try-scoring debut against Italy, there is prop Ellena Perry emerging as a starter, Dannah O’Brien, Aoife Dalton, and Stacey Flood further cementing their roles in the back-line, and a dynamic back row led by young captain Erin King.

At just 22, King has quickly shown signs of flourishing as the team’s new leader, a position head coach Bemand had no hesistation in appointing her to. At a time post-World Cup when the Green Wave is continuing to grow both on and off the pitch, she is very much leading from the front.

“I think what you’re seeing is a young leader that’s really kind of authentic,” Scaysbrook said of King. “You can see probably the imprint of her personality on the team which is great.

“That kind of real desire to drive the team forward is the big thing you really see from her. Growing the Green Wave, it’s obviously something we’re super aware of as a team.

“Part of driving our Green Wave is inspiring the next group of people. Being in Galway last week, the amount of people that were there was really noticeable. It really drives the team on.

“We want as many people as possible to come to the games and yeah, it’s super important to us. I hope that people keep coming and it keeps getting bigger, which I’ve absolutely not doubt that it will.”

Ireland have been becoming more accustomed to playing in front of larger attendances – they drew five-figure crowds for their World Cup matches against Japan (13,053), New Zealand (30,017), and France (11,618) – and took on England in front of 77,120 fans during their most recent away trip.

It was a Women’s Six Nations record crowd at Twickenham, and King and her team-mates will get to set another record of their own in the final round on Sunday, May 17, with the announcement that over 20,000 tickets have been sold for their historic date with Scotland at the Aviva Stadium.

The France Women’s side have not played in Clermont since November 2019, and with it being a rugby-mad city and the game having a late kick-off of 9.10pm local time, the local supporters are sure to be out in force. Scaysbrook wants the players to embrace the atmosphere and rise to it.

“Well, I think the girls had a reasonable practice with 77,000 people at Twickenham! So I’d say, yeah, we’re really looking forward to thriving in that environment and looking at it as a real challenge.

“It’s something to be really excited by and not worried by. We’re really looking forward to being in that environment.”

Giving his thoughts on France, who have former Canada boss Francois Ratier as their new head coach, he added: “You can see that there’s a lot of similar players and certainly a lot of the same threats that they pose. They’re definitely all still there, but I wouldn’t say there’s huge amounts of change.

“They seem like they’re quite a well settled team, which is obviously a big advantage you can have. From the first couple of rounds we’ve seen, they’re still the same confident team that they were.”