IRELAND HEAD COACH Tom Tierney believes his side’s commanding victory over Wales this afternoon will ignite their Six Nations campaign.
It was a one-sided encounter at Donnybrook as two first-half tries provided the backbone for Ireland to begin their title defence with a convincing 21-3 win.
Ireland were superior in both attack and defence and dominated proceedings for much of the contest as they demonstrated their skills at both ends of the pitch.
And Tierney believes an opening day win will help the squad, which contains several new faces, gel together as they prepare for a trip to France.
“It was a good win absolutely,” he said afterwards. “Coming to a a new ground as your home, Donnybrook was everything we were hoping it for it to be today.
“A win to start the Championship with a lot of new faces, some winning their first cap, some their second, on top of some of the experiences girls and that will only help us from a squad gelling point of view and lead us into a good training week ahead of the French game.”
Tries from Sene Naoupu and Sophie Spence set Ireland on their way as captain Niamh Briggs added three penalties from the kicking tee.
It was an impressive performance from Tierney’s side, although they were guilty of squandering a number of scoring changes during the second-half.
“We were full value for our half-time lead and I think the second-half it was a case of what we had we held,” he contnued. “And the weather conditions were poor and we were at times camped inside the Welsh 22 and we would have liked to have been a bit more expansive or deceptive but weather conditions made it difficult and we put our forwards until a lot of stress as they were overworked at times.
“It’s something to work on and it’s important to have things to work on when you win and we’ll do that during the week.
“Two very good tries, we’re trying to work to our strengths on a pitch like this and we had our forwards doing a lot of work today but it was pleasing that once they had their job done in the phase play, we moved that ball wide.
“The squad is very new and inexperienced and and a win like this will help the girls and will jump-start the campaign and we’ll go over to France with confidence.”
