{"id":414724,"date":"2026-04-24T06:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/414724\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T06:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:10:11","slug":"weve-got-the-game-to-go-there-and-cause-problems-ireland-braced-for-french-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/414724\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We’ve got the game to go there and cause problems’ \u2013 Ireland braced for French test"},"content":{"rendered":"

IRELAND ARE TARGETING a milestone win in Clermont tomorrow, and while head coach Scott Bemand appreciates the feeling around the fixture, he\u2019s not of the opinion it will define this Six Nations for his team.<\/p>\n

Ireland head to the\u00a0Stade Marcel-Michelin [KO 8.10pm, Virgin Media Two\/BBC iPlayer] with the ambition of winning a Six Nations game in France for the first time, while also searching for a first win over Les Bleus since 2017.<\/p>\n

Such an achievement would have looked beyond Ireland just a few years ago, but their rate of improvement under Bemand has seen the gap between the sides close significantly.<\/p>\n

Bemand\u2019s team faced France twice last year, the French pulling away to frustrate Ireland in Belfast before edging a thrilling, controversial World Cup quarter-final in Exeter.<\/p>\n

And having delivered an impressive nine-try win over Italy in Galway last weekend, Ireland \u2013 who lost 33-12 to England in round one \u2013 feel they are in a good place ahead of their latest shot at toppling the French.<\/p>\n

Ireland have ambitions of breaking into the top two in the Six Nations, and given France have finished second to England for the last six years running, this looks the key game towards achieving that goal.<\/p>\n

However, Bemand doesn\u2019t buy into the notion this game will \u2018make or break\u2019 this Six Nations for his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, in the grand scheme of things, I don\u2019t think it does [make or break the Six Nations], with the start of a new World Cup cycle, we want to keep getting better, we want to keep closing the gap, that\u2019s one of the key things for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game against England, we let them get to a start that we didn\u2019t want. France\u2019s two games, they\u2019ve only got going in the second half, so for us the ability to get a good start is going to be really important, but we know France are a different entity in France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to have a full stadium behind them, so we know it\u2019s the toughest place to go.\u00a0We know what we\u2019ve got to do. So I think we\u2019ll keep going after the goals that we\u2019ve set ourselves at the beginning.\n<\/p>\n

We want to keep closing this gap. Whatever happens, we know we\u2019ve got the game to go there and cause problems, if we get that bit right, we\u2019ll fire enough shots, we\u2019ll get our game out there and the result will take care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland haven\u2019t been shy about talking up their chances, with fullback Stacey Flood outlining her belief that France should be \u201cworried\u201d <\/a>about what\u2019s coming their way in Clermont tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bemand has no problem with such fighting talk, given what he\u2019s seeing behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what I\u2019ve been really impressed, the group hasn\u2019t got ahead of itself,\u201d Bemand says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the same way, the group didn\u2019t get too down on themselves when the result at Twickenham went the way it went, so I know different coaches talk about different stuff, over in Bath, Johann [van Graan] talks about never too high, never too low.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, there\u2019s a series of games. If you look at the lads (men\u2019s team), everyone thought Ireland were out for the count after the game in France and they came back and were within the kick of winning it (the Six Nations).<\/p>\n

\"scott-bemand\"
\n Ireland head coach Scott Bemand. Ben Brady \/ INPHO<\/p>\n

Ben Brady \/ INPHO \/ INPHO\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we know that we\u2019ve played two games.\u00a0We\u2019re in this competition still.\u00a0France can always produce a result, we know that against an English team. They\u2019re due one at some point.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ll just keep going after ourselves and keep going after our own processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next game is France, which is great. It\u2019s our next opportunity. We managed to take the positive stuff from the England game and put that on the pitch against Italy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to take the best bits of both games and continue to go after our own 85-minute performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m being specific around it going longer than the 80, because if it goes right to the death, we\u2019ve got to stay confident in what we\u2019re doing and understand that there\u2019s some challenges that we\u2019ve got to come through.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u00a0the group is, I\u2019m going to say stable,\u00a0and understanding that they\u2019re not getting too far ahead of themselves in the same way if on the pitch, something doesn\u2019t happen, wheels aren\u2019t going fall off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bemand\u2019s team for Saturday\u00a0shows just one change to the starting XV<\/a>, with\u00a0Dorothy Wall named in the back row as Ruth Campbell moves to the bench. One further switch on the bench sees\u00a0Eil\u00eds Cahill replaces Sadhbh McGrath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRELAND ARE TARGETING a milestone win in Clermont tomorrow, and while head coach Scott Bemand appreciates the feeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3612,61,60,1254,43,3654,2447,4599],"class_list":["post-414724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-confident","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-womens-rugby","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-scott-bemand","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414724","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=414724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}