their 57-20 victory<\/a> over the Italians.<\/p>\nAlthough she was withdrawn with more than 25 minutes of the game to go, Wafer was still Ireland\u2019s top ball-carrier with 14. She beat three defenders along the way, as well as winning gainline after gainline for Ireland, allowing their backs to flourish in the first half, particularly. Parsons grabbed a hat-trick.<\/p>\n
Simply put, when 23-year-old Wafer is at her best, she makes Ireland tick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you guys asked the question around Aoife last week and we just said look, sometimes you can have a quieter day game or more difficult game to get into,\u201d said Ireland boss Scott Bemand in Galway.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe made damn certain she got into the game today, carrying off the scrum, a couple of tackles. I think she had two massive tackles and a dominant carry for scrum in the first 20 minutes and suddenly she\u2019s in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, we\u2019d have loved to have left her out there. She got a little bit of cramp. We\u2019re up on the scoreboard, we\u2019re going to France next week, it\u2019s only game two in the competition. It\u2019s important to look after your players.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, no doubt she\u2019ll be disappointed to come off when she did but she\u2019s fine. She\u2019ll go again this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"aoife-wafer-and-silvia-turani-swap-jerseys-after-the-match\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776546974_832_.JPEG\")
\n Wafer with Italy’s Silvia Turani. Dan Sheridan \/ INPHO<\/p>\n
Dan Sheridan \/ INPHO \/ INPHO\n<\/p>\n
Bemand was delighted to see his team come up with a response to last weekend\u2019s loss away to England.<\/p>\n
They put Italy to the sword in the first half, earning a 45-10 lead, and then saw out their win after the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that without getting carried away on one result, you know, 45 points up at half time is a significant first half, isn\u2019t it? And it\u2019s a significant difference,\u201d said Bemand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose that know the Dexcom in Galway, it\u2019s always going to be tougher into a breeze than with it, but I thought we capitalised and most importantly, kept the momentum going in the first half.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week, we said we didn\u2019t fire enough shots, we didn\u2019t get our game going. And quite simply, that\u2019s down to a little bit of accuracy and potentially even some physicality.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we went after that this week and we definitely got transfer from Wednesday\u2019s training session into the game today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having registered their first win of the Six Nations, Ireland now turn their attention towards next weekend\u2019s visit to Clermont to take on France.<\/p>\n
The French knocked Ireland out of last year\u2019s World Cup in a closely fought quarter-final, a game in which the match officials failed to send French player Axelle Berthoumieu off for a bite on Wafer.<\/p>\n
![\"erin-king-celebrates-after-the-match\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776546974_264_.JPEG\")
\n Ireland captain Erin King. Dan Sheridan \/ INPHO<\/p>\n
Dan Sheridan \/ INPHO \/ INPHO\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess we do kind of owe them one, and I think we are raring to go against them,\u201d said Ireland skipper Erin King.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd today it was brilliant to get that confidence and show what the squad is capable of and just keep building on the performances that we\u2019re putting in and then go into training again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, there\u2019s probably a few fixes that we can take from today, a few learnings, and just keep improving at the end of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main focus is ourselves, and if we can keep improving in our squad, we\u2019re happy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Murray Kinsella Reports from Dexcom Stadium AFTER ENDURING A frustrating afternoon in Twickenham when she only got three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[178573,178574,123980,4500,61,60,102,43,2447],"class_list":{"0":"post-405687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-destructive","9":"tag-dexcom-stadium","10":"tag-erin-king","11":"tag-galway","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-italy","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-scott-bemand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771087990_574_Murray-K-133x133.png\")
<\/p>\n