As has long since been expected, then, effectively since the draw was made, all roads lead to Exeter’s Sandy Park next Sunday (kick-off 1pm) for the Ireland team and a defining quarter-final clash with familiar foes France in the 2025 women’s Rugby World Cup.
Ireland’s fate was sealed, not unexpectedly, by a 40-0 loss to the six-time and reigning champions New Zealand which meant Scott Bemand’s team finished runners-up in Pool C, so consigning them to a quarter-final against the Pool D winners.
Similarly, that was never in doubt, as France sailed into a 31-3 interval lead against South Africa in their Pool D decider in Northampton en route to an ominous 57-10 victory. They look a different proposition, with the heartbeat of their team, scrumhalf Pauline Bourdon Sansus, back pulling the strings in their last two games after completing a three-game suspension for her criticism after playing for Toulouse against Clermont.
Even in the immediate aftermath of his side’s 27-15 defeat in Belfast in their Six Nations opener last April, and even though that was France’s 20th win in 23 meetings with Ireland, Bemand was speculating how much his players could take from being so competitive against les bleus.
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Physically, Ireland also emerged relatively unscathed from this bruising Black Ferns revenge mission, with Bemand playing down the foot injury which evidently left Stacey Flood in agony before being taken off on a mobile stretcher, albeit her applause to the crowd was deemed positive.
“Stacey has got a cut on her foot so we’ll certainly need to have a look at that and try to get that fixed up as best as we can and as quick as we can. Both Eve [Higgins] and Edel [McMahon] have come off but I’m pretty hopeful they’ll come through pretty quickly.”
Higgins had passed her HIA while McMahon’s removal was with next week in mind, when Aoife Wafer could make her first appearance of the tournament, although she didn’t appear to be moving that freely in the warm-up.
“As I stand here now, with what I know, I’m pretty hopeful that everybody is going to be fit and raring to go next week,” said Bemand.
As well as the physical wounds, Bemand was also confident the scale of this defeat will not affect his team psychologically.
“No, I think our girls understand. They spoke really well at the end there and I think they understand that we actually got ‘ins’. We haven’t just received New Zealand attacking us, and for the first block of that game we found ‘ins’ and we had opportunities late in the game when the bench, the finishers came on and brought a little bit of energy that showed we can get back on top.
“We’ve just got to be a bit smarter about how to finish off points when we get into the points zone, if we do that we’ll take it later into the games and that’s where you’ve got to be at the business end.”
Bemand was also optimistic that the Green Wave will support Ireland as they did when making up the majority of the 30,017 attendance in the Brighton & Hove Albion Stadium against New Zealand.
“The support was outstanding, I had goosebumps for the anthems and hearing Ireland’s Call. I thought the crowd ... they’ve been filling Brighton for the past two or three days, it’s been outstanding to see the green wave grow. We wanted to give them something and there will be moments they’d be proud of.
“Quarter-final, winner takes all. It’s an exciting opportunity for us and for the Ireland support to get behind them.”
