Scott Bemand: 'We don't want to be noble losers, we felt we could win'

Ireland hadn’t beaten the French since 2017 but they went into this with their tails up on the back of a much-improved Six Nations last year and a brilliant WXV1 campaign in Canada where they finished second behind England.

This, then, felt like one that got away.

“Absolutely, absolutely. We were just talking at the end there and the narrative with the group [is] we don’t want to be noble losers,” said Bemand. “We don’t want to put up a good fist of it against a good France team. With ten minutes to go, we felt we could go on and win.

“They’re a young group still. They’ve got to be in those positions. We’ve had some experience, like at the end of the New Zealand game in WXV1, when we were able to come back and win it.

“But coming out here against these Tier One nations and World Cup contenders, we thought it would come down to those last 20 minutes.

“And you’re going to need to have that composure, not belief really, just calmness of thought that you can execute where you want to be on the pitch, how you get there and then you take those opportunities. So it does feel like we’ve lost a game we could have been in.” 

Ireland had plenty to regret.

There were handling errors galore in their opening quarter especially. Out-half Dannah O’Brien left six points slip from three try conversions, two of which were very kickable, and they faced a team that played with 14 players after the red card for Gabrielle Vernier.

That slow start was the real killer.

“If you look at the size of the packs, we’re against a reasonably formidable athletic team. At times, they lost their shape a little bit. So there will be plenty of little bits we need to go away and work on to fire a few more shots.

“We adapted a bit after half-time as their linespeed had been putting pressure on the first catcher, but we have to be able to handle that pressure. So it is a bit of a chastening experience sitting here now and being hugely disappointed with a game that we were in.

“Because we also had plenty of moments, plenty of opportunities. We had five entries to their 22, they had six. So probably a little more clinical there than we were. That means we are rueing the early missed opportunities even more.” 

This was still a day that confirmed the forward progress of a side that had finished winless and with the wooden spoon in the 2023 Six Nations and failed to even qualify for the last World Cup in New Zealand.

This was an eighth straight loss to the French but it should only further belief that they have the beating of them if, as expected, these two meet again come the quarter-final stages of the World Cup later this year in England.

“There are mixed emotions,” said Edel McMahon. “When the whistle went, we were all disappointed. It was a game where we were in, we knew we could compete in and actually win. And that’s really satisfying to see that’s where we’re at as a squad.

“We’re not complacent to think, “Ah that looks alright, oh we competed'.

“We’re actually there to win games. There’s a frustration with that. But on the flip side, I’m extremely proud of the girls because we set out in this campaign to be hard to beat, to fire shots and compete with Tier One Nations. And we did that today.”