When asked if handing debuts to Perry and McGillivray undermines some of Ireland’s longer-serving players, Bemand said: “If done incorrectly.<\/p>\n
“But with Christy [Haney] picking up the hamstring niggle we needed to bring in and supplement the front row. <\/p>\n
“So actually, everything has been done well, in my opinion. In terms of the playing group, she’s known to a good few of our group. So actually transitioning in, in terms of the block that we’ve gone through, it’s been a pre-season block. <\/p>\n
“So people coming in and getting touch points within pre-season blocks is actually a really healthy point to enter. And it gives people time to acclimatise. <\/p>\n
“It gives people time to understand what the culture is of the group. It’s not just an on-pitch piece. There’s an off-piece culture where people like to be themselves, and add to our wave. She’s been able to do that.”<\/p>\n
Bemand added that Exeter’s McGillivray, who grew up in Hong Kong and has an Irish father, has added an “enormous amount” since coming into the squad. <\/p>\n
“She’s played with a good few of the players, other players have got to know her, and it’s brought just a little bit of energy when you sort of get through your pre-season bits,” he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When asked if handing debuts to Perry and McGillivray undermines some of Ireland’s longer-serving players, Bemand said: “If…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-50716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}