IF YOU WERE to study the world rankings, examine the formbook and delve through history’s scrapbook, you wouldn’t even bother leaving the team hotel if you were Nichola Fryday, the Ireland women’s rugby captain.
You’d look at the evidence. France are ranked third in the world; Ireland eighth. They are going to the World Cup; Ireland are not. They are professional, Ireland a mix of amateur and pro. They got 56 points at Donnybrook last year, Ireland just 15.
But athletes are cut from a different cloth to the rest of society. They convince themselves anything is possible and that includes producing a massive upset in Toulouse tomorrow.
“Every team has that belief in them,” Fryday said this morning. “You don’t go out thinking you are going to lose a match; that is the way we are driven. You want to stand up to the bigger teams in Europe. If we can really impose ourselves physically on them, it will be a tight game.
“I said from the start this Six Nations that this will be one of the closest (competitions) in years. You would like to think you will see these shock wins come to fruition. If we go out and play the game we want to play, it will be a good day for us.
“They’re human at the end of the day; they’re not superior humans. Yes, they’re extremely good rugby players and an extremely good team but they are not bigger and better. You have to look at it in that sense. Yeah, you mightn’t be the tallest and you mightn’t be the fastest but you still think that when you go out on the pitch, you can play the game on your terms.”
She has experienced victory in France before – five years ago, when she was a replacement on the great Irish team that was coming to the end of its cycle, after winning a grand slam and championship over the course of the preceding four years.
So, she knows how to cope with the pressure of the big occasion, the musical crowd, the constant drumbeat, the packed stands.
“We cannot let the occasion override everything else on the pitch, we still want to go out and perform,” said Fryday. “That is going to be the key thing for us but I think the girls should enjoy these moments because in Test rugby these are ones you will look back on.
“We definitely should embrace it, but at the same time, we still have a job to do.
“When we won here last, I was on the bench, and it was a real battle on the pitch that day so I hope we front up and make it that battle again, make it hard for them.”
