AFTER THE BALL was booted out of the ground and Ireland’s 42-14 defeat of Japan was rubber-stamped, Florence & The Machine played over the Franklin’s Gardens’ PA.

“The dog days are over.”

It certainly felt that way as Ireland made a welcome return to World Cup rugby. Eight long years since their last appearance at the game’s showpiece event, having missed out on the 2021 edition in New Zealand (played in 2022), Ireland were back among the big time, opening their Pool C campaign with an encouraging six-try win.

Bigger tests lie ahead, namely New Zealand in round three, and Ireland will need to dig deep to advance through a quarter-final should they make it that far. That’s certainly a very live possibility given Scott Bemand’s side are expected to make it two from two when they face Spain next Sunday.

This opening performance showcased much of the good work that has been done since Bemand took the reigns in 2023, coming to the job when Ireland were ranked 11th in the world and coming off a Six Nations wooden spoon.

They defended well, having seen issues crop up in warm-up games against Scotland and Canada – James Scaysbrook replaced the popular Hugh Hogan as defence coach earlier this summer.

They attacked with intent and played with notable confidence. This was one of the most encouraging aspects of the display given only one of Bemand’s 32-squad, hooker Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald, has previous experience of playing World Cup rugby.

And that the scores came from different sources. Neve Jones finished a maul try. Eve Higgins ran in an intercept try from end-to-end. In terms of that confidence play, both Amee-Leigh Costigan and Higgins backed themselves to make breaks having identified space in the Japan defence – Costigan shaping to pass before breaking forward to set-up Beibhinn Parsons’ score, with Higgins doing similar as she sprinted and side-stepped to assist Fiona Tuite.

“Do you know what, you can never be one thing and not the other over a competition like this, you’re going to need variety in how you attack and how you defend and where you play the game,” Bemand said.

“So in terms of identifying space and going after it, if there’s space there’s space and it’s there, I’m delighted that our players saw it and could connect and then go after it.

“I spoke about this with the warm-up games. I think we’re getting our momentum piece right. I think we’re coming in in the sweet spot and now we just going to keep getting better through the competition.”

Improvement will be needed if Ireland are to achieve what they feel they can at this tournament, but as opening run-outs go, this was a very pleasing days’ work for the Ireland coaches.

“You base everything on your training and we succeeded in getting a great training week under our belt,” Bemand said.

“That for me should give everyone confidence going into these games. We spoke about performance-wise what we want out of this but when you’ve been away for a few years you want to get everything you can out of an experience like this.

We’ve turned up, it’s a near-full Franklin’s Gardens, it’s a great occasion, the sun is out, this is the time of your lives. Don’t be anxious about it, embrace the opportunity.”

Bemand was understandably delighted to see his team race into a 14-0 lead in the opening 10 minutes, having found themselves on the wrong end of that scoreline early on in both warm-up games.

“We did a little bit of prep around how teams play. We knew we’d get not a large amount of set piece. We knew they’d have ball in hand and some of their innovative kicking strategies they’d use. It was what we expected, what we prepared for, we’re in alright health coming out of that.”

In picking faults, Bemand can look at four lost lineouts.

“Lineouts are a complex beast. We put in some new combos today. I’m incredibly confident in our set piece, I’m delighted we managed to get a maul try.

“There are some things we set out to do in games, as you know if you’re getting penalties, you get ins, and you’ve got a maul that can score tries, it’s a fantastic opportunity.

“Overall I’m largely happy with how it’s been tracking over the last two pre-season games and this. There are some things to tighten up, same with attack, same with defence, kicking strategy, we’ll go after ourselves this week.”