Ireland head coach Scott Bemand says his side must get “smarter” after their second half collapse led to a shock 40-36 defeat to the USA in Tallaght.
The visitors came from 31-12 down early in the second half to score 28 points before Ireland could reply with a late Dorothy Wall try, by which point Bemand’s side were nine points behind with less than a minute to play.
Ireland also paid a heavy price for their ill-discipline, allowing the Americans easy access to the 22 through a string of penalties, and in particular with a yellow card to winger Vicky Elmes Kinlan on 63 minutes, during which time they gave up three converted tries.
And the Ireland head coach was left to bemoan a series of “daft” penalties, which saw Ireland fall apart in the second half.
“We knew that penalties would give them an ‘in’, and if they got an in, they’d be difficult to stop,” Bemand (below) told RTÉ Sport.
“The penalties we were giving away, some are daft and you can do something about, some are to do with momentum, and when teams get momentum, you’re more likely to get not-rolling-away penalties.
“There are two bits for us to go after. One is daft penalties which are a free shot to the opposition, so we can cut those out, we can control that.
“In terms of the technical, tactical aspect of how we finish tackles fast early and not let big humans get momentum, that plays a significant role as well in dampening down the penalty count. Once we kept them out, we looked fine.
“It was just their ability to get in and us stopping them when they got in.”
For the opening 45 minutes, it looked like Ireland were well on course to keep their Six Nations momentum rolling into a new season.
Tries for Elmes Kinlan, Clíodhna Moloney MacDonald and Aoife Wafer had them 17-0 in front after the opening quarter, and while the USA did pick off a couple of cheap first half tries, scores for Eve Higgins and Erin King had the hosts in complete control with 45 minutes played, leading by 19 points before the wheels came off in the final 25 minutes.
And Bemand believes the lessons his players have learned were mental as well as physical.
USA players celebrate after one of their seven tries
“We’ve got to be smarter when we come under pressure in terms of how we deal with that, how we solution find to a problem.
“USA, once they got in and got an opportunity to get their maul game going, they were accurate with that.
“I think we’ve probably shown some of the absolute quality rugby, the game that we want to play, and then we’ve shown some bits where USA, using a good power game, have got on top of us and we haven’t been able to wrestle momentum back.
“Probably the headline learning for us is when we’re good, I thought we looked really good and when teams get momentum on top of us we’ve got to be cuter in terms of how we stop that momentum and arrest it and get back on top.
“Ultimately, we just came up short with how we executed against it and when they got momentum, momentum fed momentum for them. So, fair play, USA. Our day will come again,” Bemand added.
The Ireland head coach also defended his use of his replacements in Tallaght, using just five of his eight subs and leaving Sadhbh McGrath, Jane Clohessy and Niamh Gallagher on the bench.
“I think when you’re going against the power game, I felt the girls that we had on the pitch were in the position to do something about it.
“It’s not often I leave people on the bench. The [yellow] card came at a certain time that we had to problem-solve, or that affected some of our some of our substitution strategy as well.
Jemima Adams Verling made her debut in the Ireland back row
“It’s not very often it happens that we don’t get people on. Those girls are going to continue to get minutes through training and playing as we go through and when they get their moment, it’ll be their turn to shine.”
Ireland host Japan in Galway and Cork across the next two weeks, before a two-Test series in South Africa late in October.
And Bemand insists his side will learn the lessons from their second half collapse in Tallaght.
“This is the first blip we’ve had, I feel. The baby isn’t out of the bathwater.
“We’ll certainly be going hard at that next week.
“We want to and we’ve got to [respond]. We’ve got two fascinating challenges against a completely different style of play with the Japanese, but then we get on a plane and go over to South Africa where we’re going to play against a team with more of a power game again.
“So, we’ve got an opportunity to put that right. I think we know how we’re going to go about it.
“We think we know what we’ve got to do. We’ve just got to get out there and do it.”